Carnegie Council

Helle Porsdam is a professor of American Studies at the SAXO Institute, University of Copenhagen. She holds an M.A. in English from the University of Copenhagen, a Ph.D in American Studies from Yale University, and a Dr. Phil. from University of Southern Denmark.

In 1992-93 and again in 2000-2001 she was a liberal arts fellow at the Harvard Law School. In Michaelmas Term 2011, she will be a visiting fellow at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge. She teaches American history, and her primary research interests are American culture and intellectual history, the role of law in American history and culture, American constitutionalism, and law and humanities. Porsdam has published widely on these topics.

Her publications include: Legally Speaking: Contemporary American Culture and the Law (1999) and From Civil to Human Rights: Dialogues on Law and Humanities in the United States and Europe (2009). She is the project leader of CULTIVATE, a three-year research collaboration between the universities of Copenhagen, Uppsala, London, Utrecht and Iceland and part of the HERA Joint Research Programme for the theme "Humanities as a Source of Creativity and Innovation" (www.cultivateproject.dk).