Professor Jay Prosser
- Position: Professor of Humanities
- Areas of expertise: Creative nonfiction. Jewish studies. Gender studies. Histories and theories of photography.
- Email: J.D.Prosser@leeds.ac.uk
- Location: 201 5 Cavendish Road
- Website: jayprosser.com | Bluesky | LinkedIn | ORCID
Profile
I received my BA in English from the University of London (prize for highest first-class honours in my college), followed by an MA and PhD from the City University of New York Graduate School as a Fulbright Scholar, where my thesis was also prize-winning. I have taught and researched internationally and have been based at the University of Leeds since 1999.
My work spans the humanities and reflects a long-standing interest in what it means to be human and how this is represented historically. Trained initially as a cultural theorist, my research has increasingly moved toward creative nonfiction that speaks beyond the academy while remaining grounded in rigorous research.
Responsibilities
- Deputy Director, Centre for Jewish Studies
- Co-chair, Jewish Staff Network
Research interests
My early work focused on gender and narrative. Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality (Columbia University Press, 1998), the first book-length study of transsexual narratives, is considered foundational in transgender studies. I also co-edited Palatable Poison: Critical Perspectives on The Well of Loneliness (Columbia University Press, 2002) and have published widely in gender studies. Alongside this, I wrote on American literature, including essays on John Updike and the edited collection American Fiction of the 1990s (Routledge, 2008).
Photography has been a sustained focus of my work. Light in the Dark Room: Photography and Loss (University of Minnesota Press, 2004) examines how photography mediates experiences of loss. From 2005–10, I led an international collaboration on photographs of atrocity, resulting in Picturing Atrocity: Photography in Crisis (Reaktion Books, 2012), published in support of Amnesty International. I have also written on photographers including Nan Goldin, Gillian Wearing, Susan Meiselas, and Del LaGrace Volcano.
I later moved into Jewish and transcultural studies. In 2013–14, I led the AHRC-funded network Ottoman Pasts, Present Cities: Cosmopolitanism and Transcultural Memories, which explored transcultural memory in the former Ottoman Empire through collaborations between academics and creative practitioners. This work led to a special issue of Memory Studies, an exhibition, and community outreach. My own research focused on the writings of Elif Shafak.and the Jewish Mahallah of Singapore.
My most recent book, Loving Strangers: A Camphorwood Chest, a Legacy, a Son Returns, is a family memoir as cultural history, tracing Baghdadi Jewish–Chinese lineages in Southeast Asia and examining intimacy, empire, diaspora, and prejudice. It won the 2020 Hazel Rowley Prize and shortlisted for the 2019 Tony Lothian Prize. I have also published short personal essays, several of which have been shortlisted or received commendations in creative nonfiction competitions.
My current research centres on the Jewish historian Cecil Roth. Drawing on the Roth collections held at Leeds, I am examining his post-Holocaust work, including an object he collected in Salonica: a shoe sole cut from a Torah scroll. This research has been taken up by the Jewish Chronicle and has developed into a broader project on Holocaust Torah scrolls held in Yorkshire. I am now writing a work of creative nonfiction that traces the history and meanings of this object, exploring the limits of academic knowledge and the demands of narrative and imagination.
<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Some research projects I'm currently working on, or have worked on, will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>Qualifications
- PhD English, City University of New York, Graduate School, October 1996
- MA, English, City University of New York, Graduate School, 1992
- BA, English, 1st Class, University of London, Westfield College, 1988
Professional memberships
- Association of Jewish Studies
- British and Irish Association of Jewish Studies
- Jewish Historical Society of England
- European Association of Jewish Studies
- International Association of Auto/Biography
- Biographers' Club
- Memory Studies Association
- Genocide and Holocaust Studies Network
- Modern Languages Association
Student education
I teach creative nonfiction (memoir) and critical theory. Current modules include Telling Lives: Reading and Writing Family Memoir (BA) and So where do you come from? Selves, families, storie (MA). Students from these modules have gone on to publish memoirs and win competitions. Typically I welcome PhD supervision in Jewish studies, transcultural studies, creative nonfiction, and transgender studies, and have extensive experience supervising both critical and practice-based doctorates. However, with rare exceptions, I am not taking new students at present..
Research groups and institutes
- Centre for Jewish Studies
- Critical Life Research Group
- Creative Writing at Leeds