Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly has always been interested in German literature and culture from the late 15th to the 18th centuries within their European context, in women's writing in all periods and in the representation of women in German literature and culture. She has made a special study of early modern court festivals of all kinds throughout Europe and of court culture. Her most recent research, however, has expanded its chronological range and her book Beauty or Beast? The Woman Warrior in the German Imagination from the Renaissance to the Present (OUP 2010) examined art and literature right up to the 1990s. Her most recent book, Projecting Imperial Power. New Nineteenth-Century Emperors and the Public Sphere, discusses new emperors in France, Austria, Germany, Brazil, Mexico and India from 1804 to 1947 (OUP 2021). She was the Project Leader of 'Marrying Cultures: Queens Consort and European Identities, 1500-1800', one of the 18 projects funded by HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area) as part of its 'Cultural Encounters' programme. The project involved collaboration with colleagues in Germany, Poland and Sweden. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and was awarded an honorary DLitt by the National University of Ireland in 2016.
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