Helen Cowie
Deputy Head of Department Professor of Early Modern History Harassment Officer

Profile

Biography

MA and PhD (University of Warwick)

Helen Cowie is Professor of Early Modern History in the Department of History and a member of the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies. She completed her PhD at the University of Warwick and joined the department in 2011. Her research focuses on the cultural history of science with a particular focus on the history of animals. She also researches and teaches the History of Latin America.

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Departmental roles

Chair of the Graduate School Board (Teaching & Assessment) - Deputy Head of Department

Research

Overview

Helen’s research focuses on the cultural history of animals. A growing area of study, the history of animals explores changing human animal relations, and can reveal a lot about the attitudes of different societies.

Helen's most recent book, Victims of Fashion, studies animal-based commodities in Britain in the period c.1800-1914. Focusing on six luxury animal products – birds’ feathers, sealskin, ivory, alpaca wool, perfumes (civet, musk, ambergris and bear’s grease) and exotic pets – she highlights the pervasive nature of animal-based consumables in the Victorian and Edwardian eras and trace their rise and fall in popularity in response to changing tastes, availability and ethical concerns.

Helen has also published an introduction to the history of animals entitled Animals in World History. This volume provides a concise synthesis of human-animal relations over time, charting shifting attitudes towards animals from domestication to the present day. It features case studies on animal astronauts, celebrity kakapos, globetrotting pandas and cocaine hippos. 

Helen’s previous publications have looked at the study of animals in museums and their exhibition in zoos and menageries. Her first monograph Conquering Nature in Spain and its Empire c.1750-1850 examines the study of natural history in the Spanish Empire in the years 1750-1850, a period in which Spain made strenuous efforts to survey, inventory and exploit the natural productions of her overseas possessions. Her second monograph, Exhibiting Animals in Nineteenth-Century Britain examines the popularization of natural knowledge through zoological gardens and travelling menageries. It encompasses a wide array of characters, from female lion tamers to piano-playing elephants. Helen’s third book, a cultural history of the llama, charts the history of this charismatic camelid from Inca icon to therapy animal.

Teaching

Undergraduate

An example of modules taught:

• HIS00086C Societies & Economies in World History
• HIS00170H Ploughing the Sea? The Spanish American Wars of Independence, 1750-1830
• HIS00137H Animals

Postgraduate

An example of modules taught:

• HIS00140M Research Project
• HIS00172M Research Dissertation

External activities

Memberships

• Council member, Society for the History of Natural History (2014 – present)

Media coverage

Websites

• Online exhibition: ‘“Poor dear Jumbo”: Elephants, Empire and Empathy in Victorian Britain’
• Contribution to British Library Science Blog: ‘Seals, Science and Nations’, 25 August 2015
• ‘The Philadelphia Zebras…and Six Great Animal Escapes of the Victorian Era’, The Conversation, 16 November 2015
• ‘How Llamas Conquered the World’, The Conversation, 16 August 2017
• ‘A Brief History of Lion Taming’, The Conversation, 11 May 2018 

Public Talks:

• ‘Stupendous Elephants and Ravenous Hyenas’: Travelling Menageries in Nineteenth-Century Britain’, Birkbeck Arts Week, Public Lecture, May 2012
• ‘Wonders from Down Under: The Kangaroo in Menagerie and Museum’, Exotic Anatomies Conference, National Maritime Museum, March 2015
• ‘Don’t Joke with Elephants’: Life and Death in the Travelling Menagerie’, Highgate Cemetery, 20 February 2018 
•  ‘Doing a Roaring Trade: Female Lion Tamers in Victorian Britain’, The Historical Association, Annual Conference, Harrogate, 13 May 2023
• 'Canine Slaves and Dancing Bears: Compassion and Cruelty in Nineteenth-Century Britain', Keats' House, London, 27 February 2025

Radio

• Interviewed for the documentary ‘Through the Lens: Llama Nation’ on RadioWest, 2 April 2018
• Contributor to Radio 4, In Our Time, episode on ‘The Inca’, 13 June 2019, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005t68;
• Contributor to Radio 3, Free Thinking, episode on 'Durer, Rhinos and Whales', 30 November 2021, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001212c 
• Contributor to the documentary ‘Uncaged’, broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 31 October 2022, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001dn04
• Contributor to Radio 3, Free Thinking, episode on ‘Beasts and animals’, 14 December 2022, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001fx1w
• Contributor to Knowing Animals Podcast, episode 208, ‘Victims of Fashion’, 9 January 2023, https://knowinganimals.libsyn.com/episode-208-victims-of-fashion-with-helen-cowie
• Contributor to New Books Network, ‘Victims of Fashion’, 23 December 2023, https://newbooksnetwork.com/victims-of-fashion
• ‘Beastly Victorians’, History Extra Podcast, 7 June 2024, https://www.historyextra.com/membership/video-beastly-victorians-preventing-animal-cruelty/
• Contributor to New Books Network, 'Animals in World History', 1 February 2025, https://newbooksnetwork.com/animals-in-world-history 

Journalism

• ‘The Great Alpaca Heist’, History Today 72:10 (October 2022)
• ‘History of Zoos: From the Royal Menageries of the Past to the Zoological Gardens of Today’, All About History 127 (February 2023), pp.46-51
• ‘Monkey Business’, History Today 74:2 (February 2024), pp. 78-85, https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/pet-monkeys-victorian-britain
• ‘Beastly Victorians’, BBC History Magazine (April 2024), pp.40-43, https://www.historyextra.com/membership/rspca-history-victorian/

Exhibitions

• Contributor to the exhibition 'Miss Clara and the Celebrity Beast in Art, 1500-1860' at The Barber Institute, University of Birmingham.