Dr Alexander Scott BA (Hons), MA, PhD, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

I teach modern history modules at undergraduate and postgraduate level, lecturing on topics such as urban history, colonialism, heritage, popular culture and the Black Atlantic. I also supervise doctoral projects in various areas, including Quakerism and abolitionism.

I am also one of the programme directors for humanities undergraduate degree schemes.

I joined the University of Wales Trinity St David in 2015. Previous to this, I was employed by Lancaster University, where I also obtained my doctorate (in History, 2014).

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy 

My area of interest is modern cultural history, with a specific focus on the histories of cities and museums. I am also interested in the politics of memory and theories of modernity and postmodernity, and how these relate to the practices and discourses of historians.

My approach to learning, research and teaching is interdisciplinary, drawing insights from critical theory, art, literature, anthropology, cultural geography, memory studies, and media, film and cultural studies. As I have a background in American Studies, my teaching and research often touches upon the history of the United States specifically.

My teaching duties reflect the above set of eclectic interests. I teach modules on a range of topics, including:

• Cultural histories of cities
• Black Atlantic history
• Museums and heritage
• Empire and colonialism
• French, Haitian and Industrial Revoltions
• Cinema and history
• Britain and the United States in the 1980s

My research explores various aspects of modern cultural history, with special emphasis on cities and museums. In 2014, I received a PhD from Lancaster University, with a thesis that examined the history and contemporary status of museums in Liverpool. My most recent publication focused on the Victorian animal trade. Current research interests include the politics of housing in 1980s Liverpool and legacies of slavery and colonialism in Lampeter. 

As the holder of degrees in American Studies (BA) and Film & Cultural Studies (MA), I have a diverse set of interdisciplinary research interests. In particular, I am an admirer of the literature of Orhan Pamuk and have a longstanding research interest in the history of international exhibitions.

I have delivered papers at numerous academic conferences, including in presentations to the Royal Historical Society and the Institute of Historical Research. 

My expertise concentrates on the history of museums and cities – and Liverpool in particular. My work draws on theories of memory plus the ideas of thinkers such as Stuart Hall, Walter Benjamin and Michel Foucault.

• 'From "Corbusian Piggeries" to "Toytown Cottages": Concrete, Brick and the Changing Materialities of Housing in Late 20th-Century Liverpool,' in Earthy Matters: Exploring Human Interactions with Earth, Soil and Clay (University of Wales Press, forthcoming).
• 'Watching the River Flow: Water, Music and Liverpool’s Materiality of Place,' in Proceedings of the Sophia Centre Conference (Sophia Centre Press, forthcoming).
• '"A Permanent Civilsing Effect?" Debating Working-Class Museumgoers in Victorian Liverpool,' in Museums and the Working Class (Routledge, forthcoming). 
• 'The "Missing Link" Between Science and Show Business: Exhibiting Gorillas and Chimpanzees in Victorian Liverpool,' 
  Journal of Victorian Culture, 25:1 (January 2020): 1–20.
• Book Review: Before the Windrush: Race Relations in Twentieth-Century Liverpool by John Belchem in The Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 164 (2015): 113–115.