Katherine Helmick is currently a candidate for the DPhil in Medieval and Modern Languages at Oxford, fully funded by the John and Daria Barry Foundation Scholarship.
She completed her MSt in Comparative Literature and Critical Translation at Keble College, Oxford, and her BA in Art with a Spanish minor and concentration in U.S. Politics at Hillsdale College, both with highest honours. Before beginning her doctoral work at Oxford, she taught with the JET program in Japan and served with the Peace Corps in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Qualifications
2020–21 University of Oxford, Keble College, Oxford, UK
- Distinction, Master of Studies, Comparative Literature and Critical Translation
- Dissertation: “Translingual Metaphors in South African and Equatorial Guinean Poetry”
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Supervisor: Dr. Laura Lonsdale
2011–14 Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan, USA
- Summa cum laude, Bachelor of Arts, Art with Spanish Minor
- Honors Program: 3.91 GPA
Affiliations
Association of Hispanists of Great Britain & Ireland (AHGBI)
Postcolonial and World Literatures Seminar, University of Oxford
Sir Thomas More Reading Group on Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, Canterbury Institute
John Colet Reading Group on Classical Liberal Arts & Education Theory, Canterbury Institute
Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi
Sigma Delta Pi National Collegiate Hispanic Honor Society
Alpha Rho Tau Civic Art Association and Honorary
Awards and Honours
John and Daria Barry Foundation Scholarship (2022–26), providing full funding for graduate studies at the University of Oxford, £104,436
Honours Fellowship (2024), Vanenburg Meeting, Centre for European Renewal, €590
Phi Kappa Phi Love of Learning Award (2020), $500
Conferences and Presentations
“Death and Immortality in Mazisi Kunene’s Anthem of the Decades”, Conference on Literature, Film, and the Desirability of Life Extension, TORCH, University of Oxford, 2 December 2025 (planned)
“Russell Kirk on Education”, Conference on Civic Thought, Education, and Leadership, Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society at Ohio State University, 26 September 2025
“Translingualism as Movement: Zulu and Equatoguinean poetry in exile”, Seminar on Researching and Writing a DPhil: Problems, Methods, All Souls College, University of Oxford, 6 June 2025
“Translingualism as Narrative: inherited trauma in Zulu and Equatoguinean contemporary theatre”, Seminar on Researching and Writing a DPhil: Problems, Methods Seminar, All Souls College, University of Oxford, 14 June 2024
Dorothy Sayers’s “On Translation of Verse”, Dorothy Sayers Reading Group on Literary Theory and Criticism, Canterbury Institute, Oxford, United Kingdom, 14 June 2021
Gregory the Great and C.S. Lewis’s “On the Reading of Old Books”, John Colet Reading Group on Classical Liberal Arts and Education Theory at the Canterbury Institute, Oxford, United Kingdom, 17 June 2021
Academic Leadership
Convenor of “Literature, Film, and the Desirability of Life Extension” Conference, TORCH, University of Oxford, 2 December 2025
Chair of “Transnational Journeys” panel, Medieval & Modern Languages Graduate Network Conference, University of Oxford, 26 June 2025
Chair of “Lessons for the West from a Small African Country” lecture by Dr Alexander Chula, Canterbury Institute, Oxford, United Kingdom, 25 November 2024
Convenor of Humanities Stream, Conference on Seeking Wisdom, Developing a Christian Mind, Oxford, United Kingdom, 18–19 March 2022
Research Summary
Katherine Helmick's research focuses on languages and literatures in Africa, with particular attention to the significance of translingualism in Zulu literature from South Africa and Hispanophone literature from Equatorial Guinea.
Her doctoral thesis discusses the inheritance of intergenerational memory through translingual literatures in South Africa and Equatorial Guinea, concentrating on language as an archive of memory and the contemporary reconciliation through narrative of literature written in exile.
Major topics of interest include:
- Translingual writing and language as a literary medium
- Collective memory and language as an archive of memory
- Intra-nationalities in Spain and Iberian multilingualism
- Hispanophone African literature and African language canons
- Orature in Africa and digital humanities
- Intra-Africa comparisons and thinking from Africa
- Multidimensional and relational frameworks for comparative studies
- Imaginative thinking as a critical practice in higher education
Teaching
Tutorials and lecture on “Translingualism in African Literatures: metaphors for language”, OxNet Access Initiative for Pembroke College, University of Oxford (August 2025)
Seminars and lecture on “Purpose of the University”, Awakening Project for the Canterbury Institute (July 2025)
Lecture on “Spanishes, Spains, and Storytelling in the 21st Century”, Graduate Lecture Scheme for the Department of Medieval and Modern Languages (May 2025)
Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET) on Tokunoshima and Yoron Island, Japan (2021–23)
- Instructed 250+ Japanese students in English language on a full-time basis at public high schools on remote rural islands, sponsored by the embassies of the United States and Japan
- Trained 78 Japanese and JET teachers in mastering English grammar and composition strategies by co-presenting with Japanese teacher at Kagoshima Prefecture’s 2022 Skills Development Conference
Peace Corps School and Community Resource Project (SCRP), KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (2018–20)
- Instructed 140+ Zulu students in English language on a full-time basis at a public primary school in an impoverished rural area, sponsored by the governments of the United States and South Africa
- Translated oral-based Spanish textbook into Zulu to improve remedial learners’ speaking proficiency
Publications
“Multilingualism and the Twentieth-Century Novel: Polyglot Passages by James Reay Williams,” Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation Review (January 2021)
Languages
Spanish (fluent)
Zulu (advanced)
Afrikaans (advanced)
Italian (conversational)
Japanese (conversational)
Arabic (novice)