Ariel Helfer
Associate Professor
248-574-4874
313-993-3435 (fax)
2005 Faculty/Administration Building
Website(s)
Department
Ariel Helfer
Dr. Helfer's research focuses on the history of political philosophy with emphasis on ancient Greek philosophy and his teaching covers a broad range of topics in the history of political thought. Some of the thinkers covered in Dr. Helfer's courses are Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Thucydides, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, Alexis de Tocqueville and Friedrich Nietzsche. Dr. Helfer has also taught courses in the history of American political thought, focusing on primary texts both from the Founding Debates (Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Hamilton, Monroe) and on the history of African American political thought (Douglass, Washington, Du Bois, King, Baldwin).
Dr. Helfer's latest book, "Plato's Letters: The Political Challenges of the Philosophic Life," came out with Cornell University Press in December 2023. The book includes a new English translation of Plato's Letters as well as a commentary that argues for reading the Letters as a unified work of Platonic political philosophy. His work on this project has been supported by grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Wayne State University. His latest research seeks to rehabilitate the philosophy of Isocrates among political theorists by arguing that Isocrates provides an important lens on the ideas and projects of his Socratic contemporaries. Dr. Helfer has presented papers on Isocrates's Busiris and Encomium of Helen at the Midwest and American Political Science Association conferences in recent years. He is also the author of "Socrates and Alcibiades: Plato's Drama of Political Philosophy and Ambition," a study of political ambition in the work of Plato, which was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2017.
In addition, Dr. Helfer has a long-standing interest in quantitative work, having taken up a secondary specialization in statistical political science methodology as a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin. He has collaborated on research on the measurement of learning in informative political processes and has taught courses in statistical methods for political scientists at the graduate level. Dr. Helfer has also taught "Math Camp" refreshers in algebra, calculus and linear algebra to incoming political science graduate students since 2010, having brought this program to Wayne State University for the first time in August, 2020.
Dr. Helfer was born and raised in Montreal, Canada, enjoys chess, ice hockey and languages and is a lifelong fan of the Montreal Canadiens. He currently resides with his wife and two sons in Ferndale, MI.
Research interest(s)/area of expertise
Political theory and quantitative political methodology
Education
- Ph.D. in Government, The University of Texas at Austin, 2015
- M.A. in Government, The University of Texas at Austin, 2013
- B.A. in Political Science and Physics, Kenyon College, 2008
Awards and grants
Dr. Helfer has received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (2019) and a Wayne State University Research Grant (2018) for his work on a new translation and interpretation of Plato's "Letters." Helfer has also received a second Wayne State University Research Grant (2021) and a WSU Humanities Center Fellowship (2023-24) to support work on his next research project, a study of the political philosophy of Isocrates. In 2023, Profssor Helfer was a recipient of the President's Award for Teaching from Wayne State University.
Selected publications
- Plato's Letters, Translated, with Introduction, Notes, and Interpretive Essay (Forthcoming from Cornell University Press, 2023)
- "Socrates and Alcibiades: Plato's Drama of Political Ambition and Philosophy" (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017)
- "Socrates' Political Legacy: Xenophon's Socratic Characters in Hellenica I and II," Interpretation: a Journal of Political Philosophy, 2018
Courses taught by Ariel Helfer
Fall Term 2024 (current)
Winter Term 2024
Fall Term 2023
Winter Term 2023
Fall Term 2022
- PS3530 - Great Political Thinkers I
- PS5999 - Special Topics in Political Science
- PS7560 - Contemporary Political and Social Theory