Helen Morales
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17 May 1969
Greek Mythology
Helen Morales | |
|---|---|
| Born | Helen Louise Morales 17 May 1969 Eastbourne, East Sussex, England |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Murray Edwards, University of Cambridge Newnham College, University of Cambridge |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Classics |
| Sub-discipline | Ancient Greek Literature Greek Mythology |
| Institutions | Murray Edwards, University of Cambridge University of Reading Arizona State University Newnham College, University of Cambridge University of California, Santa Barbara |
Helen Louise Morales is a British-American classicist and the Argyropoulos Chair in Hellenic Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is best known for her scholarship on the ancient novel, gender and sexuality, and Greek mythology, as well for her public writing and lectures.[1][2]
Morales was born in Eastbourne in 1969 to a mother from Yorkshire and a father from Cyprus. She attended schools in Eastbourne and Brighton. Her maternal aunt was the British theatre director Annie Castledine.
Morales was the first in her family to get a university degree, graduating from New Hall (now Murray Edwards College), Cambridge with a BA Hons (first class) in Classics in 1990, and a PhD from Newnham College, Cambridge in 1997.
Career
Morales took up her first lectureship at the University of Reading while she was in the second year of her PhD at Cambridge University.[1]
In 1998–1999 she was a Fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C., after which she taught for a year at Arizona State University.[1]
She returned to Cambridge University as a lecturer, and then senior lecturer from 2001 to 2009. During this time, she was also a Fellow of Newnham College, working alongside Mary Beard. Beard later dedicated her 2017 book, Women & Power: A Manifesto to her.[3]
In 2009 Morales moved to the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she was appointed the James and Sarah Argyropoulos Chair in Hellenic Studies.[1]
Morales served as Chair of the Classics Department at UCSB for three years. During this time, it won the 2019 Professional Equity Award from the Women's Classical Caucus of the Society for Classical Studies.[4]
In 2011 Morales was the Gail A. Burnett Lecturer at San Diego State University.
Morales gave the Martin Classical Lectures at Oberlin College in 2023.
Morales served as Interim Chair of the Music Department at UCSB from 2023 to 2024.
Morales established and is co-director of (with her colleague Emilio Capettini) UCSB's Center for the Study of Ancient Fiction.[5][6]
In 2024 Morales was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Languages at Uppsala University.[7]
In 2025, Morales gave the J. H. Gray Lectures at the University of Cambridge.[8]
Morales’ work has been cited, or she has been interviewed, in news outlets like The New York Times,[2][9] The New Yorker,[10][11] and The Guardian,[12][13] and has appeared on BBC Radio 4.[14][15]
