CONTACT INFORMATION:

OFFICE: G7 71 Cotham Hill

Email: jessica.moody@bristol.ac.uk

RESEARCH

My research considers collective memory, public history, and heritage. I am particularly interested in the representation of, and engagement with, difficult and dissonant pasts especially around histories of enslavement, empire and colonialism, as well as creative forms of memorialisation and counter-memorialisation and the co-production of memory work. My first monograph, The Persistence of Memory: Remembering slavery in Liverpool, 'slaving capital of the world',  analyses how transatlantic slavery has been 'remembered' in Liverpool, the largest slave-trading port city in Europe (out now with Liverpool University Press, in hardback, paperback and open access https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/isbn/9781789622577/). In this book, I map the ways in which this difficult past has (or has not) been addressed and engaged with in public discourse across a longue duree, from the end of the eighteenth century, up to the present day, and therby from 'history' to 'memory'. 

I joined the University of Bristol in September 2017. I have previously worked for the Universities of Portsmouth (Lecturer in Modern History and Heritage, 2014-2017) and York (Research Associate with the Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past Spring 2014-Autumn 2014). I completed my PhD (The memory of slavery in Liverpool in Public Discourse form the Nineteenth Century to the Present Day) at the University of York in April 2014 (supervised by Dr Geoff Cubitt). I also have a Master's degree in Cultural Heritage Management (University of York, course director Prof Laurajane Smith) and undertook my BA (Archaeology and English) at the University of Liverpool. I have also previously worked for National Museums Liverpool and undertaken work and placements with The Chocolate Story (York), English Heritage, Merchant Adventurer's Hall (York), Wiltshire Heritage Museum (Devizes) and Chester Amphitheatre.

I am currently a Co-I on the UKRI funded Citizen Science Project 'Citizens Researching Together: Reparative Justice through Collaborative Research' and lead the strand 'Decolonising Memory: digital bodies in movement' with Cleo Lake and Kwesi Johnson www.decolonisingmemory.co.uk 

Teaching

I teach enslavement, public history and memory topics across the undergraduate and postgraduate degrees including on the Black Humanities MA. In 2020-21 I introduced the University of Bristol's first Practice-Based Dissertation in History where students undertake a public history project (you can read about student experiences of this HERE). In 2021-22 I set up a new Bristol Futures unit (open to all students across the university) called Decolonise the Future! as an introduction to decolonial theory and practice in different disciplines and subject areas. 

Research Supervision:

I would be happy to supervise postgraduates on any aspect of public history/heritage/collective memory research.