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Jay Prosser

(He; him.)
Reader in Humanities, University of Leeds

I am both a critical theorist and a creative writer with a range of interests on the subject of identity.

My first book, Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality (1998), is considered a definitive work of transsexual and transgender studies. My subsequent absorption in photography resulted in two books: one on photography and mourning, Light in the Dark Room: Photography and Loss (2004); the other, in collaboration with Amnesty International, on photographs of atrocity, Picturing Atrocity: Photography in Crisis (2012). I have edited books on literature - one on American fiction of the 1990s; another on Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness. I have migrated across fields and learned about new areas by leading major international research projects, some of which resulted in journal special issues, including one on transcultural memories of the former Ottoman Empire.

My current research and teaching interests lie in memoir and Jewish studies. My family memoir in progress, Loving Strangers: a Camphorwood Chest, a Legacy, a Son Returns, was winner of the 2020 Hazel Rowley Prize and shortlisted for the 2019 Tony Lothian Prize, both for the best unpublished biography.

Experience

  • –present
    Reader in Humanities, University of Leeds

Education

  •  
    City University of New York Graduate School , PhD English

Honours

Fulbright Scholar