Konstantin Helm

Konstantin Helm (pronouns: they/them) is a researcher, lecturer, and PhD candidate at the Department for English and American Studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. They studied English and information science at HU Berlin, the University of Manchester and Università Ca’Foscari in Venice and hold an MA in English Literatures from HU.

As research assistant in British Cultural Studies and Cultural History, Konstantin is working on a PhD project on how governmental policy and related sociopolitical developments of the 1980s and 2010s influenced distinct strategies of representing and organising space in British cultural production. Their teaching has included classes on the cultural history of addiction, Victorian cultural anxiety, and haunted space(s) in the 1980s.

Konstantin is also contributing to the project “Queer Theory in Transit: Reception, Translation, and Production of Queer Theory in Polish and German Contexts” (QueerIT). Formerly as a doctoral and presently as an associate researcher, they are working on feminist receptions of queer theory in Germany as well as digital queer media.

In addition to their academic work, Konstantin has published creative nonfiction and short fiction pieces in a number of magazines and anthologies. They are active in the spoken word community in Berlin, where they regularly perform at various venues and organise a semi-regular political poetry night hosted at a housing project.