Dr Andrea Livesey
Humanities and Social Science
Faculty of Arts Professional and Social Studies
Email: A.Livesey@ljmu.ac.uk
Telephone: 0151 231 8770
I am a specialist in slavery and its legacies in the US and the UK. After completing my PhD at the University of Liverpool in 2015, I spent two years at the University of Bristol before joining LJMU in September 2018. After significant time spent in Liverpool and Bristol, two cities that were at the heart of Britain's slave economy, I have developed a strong interest in institutions that deal with difficult pasts. I am the international representative on the Universities Studying Slavery Consortium's steering committee, and have spoken at a UNESCO conference in the US on British Universities and Slavery. I established the LJMU and Slavery Project in 2018 and have worked as academic lead, researching LJMU's history alongside undergraduate and postgraduate students. Some of this research can be found on my website, Liverpoolslavery.com.
I have offered commentary on contemporary racial issues and legacies of slavery to BBC radio, NPR (US), and a various national newspapers.
My forthcoming book with LSU Press is titled 'Between Slavery and Freedom: Interviews on Slavery and Black Culture in 1930s Louisiana'. Funded by the British Academy, the work is a monograph/critical collection of unpublished interviews with formerly enslaved people from Louisiana that were conducted by black and writers employed by the New Deal’s Federal Writers’ Project. This book is part of a two book project, with the second book due for completion in 2024.
My new book project with the University of North Carolina Press follows on from my PhD project and seeks to understand the intersection of sexual violence and involuntary motherhood under slavery in the Lower US South. I am especially interested in the role of enslaved midwives in helping enslaved women to resist forced reproduction and shape understandings of reproductive justice in the context of the nineteenth century. Associated with this project I am currently leading on two research grants. The first is a British Academy SHAPE Involve and Engage Award, a collaboration with the International Slavery Museum (https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/international-slavery-museum) and Collective Encounters (https://collective-encounters.org.uk/) in a project exploring the use of creative methodologies to engage and include underrepresented voices in museum spaces. The second is a research grant co-led by Clare Maxwell, Reader in Maternal and Infant Health, to work with History and Midwifery students on a set of decolonising interventions into the midwifery curriculum.
I am interested in supervising postgraduates students working in any area of slavery and race in the Atlantic World.
Degrees
2015, University of Liverpool, UK, PhD
University of Liverpool, United Kingdom, MA Atlantic History
Academic appointments
External Examiner, History, Queen Mary University of London, 2023 - present
International Representative, Universities Studying Slavery Steering Committee, University of Virginia, 2023 - present
Lecturer in the History of Slavery, University of Bristol, 2016 - 2018
Book review
Livesey A. 2024. Consent in the Presence of Force: Sexual Violence and Black Women's Survival in Antebellum New Orleans. By Emily A. Owens (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2023. xvi intro pp. $19.95.) Journal of Social History, :1-3 DOI Publisher Url Public Url
Journal article
Livesey A. 2023. Rewriting America: New Essays on the Federal Writers’ Project. Edited by SaraRutkowski Western Historical Quarterly, 55 DOI Publisher Url Public Url
Livesey A. 2021. Review: Contesting Slave Masculinity in the American South. By David Stefan Doddington. Journal of the Early Republic, 41 :505-507 Publisher Url Public Url
Livesey A. 2021. Learning Slavery at Home: Garçonnières and Adolescent Enslavers in Rural Louisiana 1806–1861 Journal of Global Slavery, 6 :31-54 DOI Publisher Url Public Url
Livesey AH. 2020. Slavery and Class in the American South: A Generation of Slave Narrative Testimony, 1840–1865 American Nineteenth Century History, 21 :193-194 DOI Publisher Url
Livesey A. 2020. Unrequited toil: a history of United States slavery Slavery & Abolition, 41 :417-418 DOI Publisher Url
Livesey A. 2019. BAME underrepresentation in UK universities: a view from the humanities Innovations in Practice, 13 :11-17 DOI Publisher Url Public Url
Livesey A. 2018. Race, Slavery, and the Expression of Sexual Violence in Louisa Picquet, The Octoroon American Nineteenth Century History, 19 :267-288 DOI Publisher Url Public Url
Livesey A. 2017. Conceived in violence: enslaved mothers and children born of rape in nineteenth-century Louisiana Slavery and Abolition, 38 :373-391 DOI Publisher Url Public Url
Chapters
Livesey A. 2022. Quantitative histories of slavery Writing the History of Slavery :337-360 9781474285582
Livesey A. Quantitative Histories Doddington D, Dal Lago E. Writing the History of Slavery Bloomsbury. London Publisher Url
Livesey A. WPA Interviews Lockley T, West E. Routledge Encyclopedia of Race and Racism Routledge Public Url
Research Grants Awarded:
British Academy, From Slavery to Roe vs Wade: Using Theatre to Explore Black Diasporic Understandings of Reproductive Health and Justice, International Slavery Museum, National Museums Liverpool; Collective Encounters, Liverpool, Grant value (£): 8000, Duration of research project: one year. 2023
British Academy, More than black and white: interviews with the formerly enslaved in New Deal era Louisiana, Grant value (£): 8800, Duration of research project: two years.
Media Coverage:
'Slavery Stories', BBC Radio Three, Free Thinking
BBC Radio Merseyside, Debate on Removal of Statues
BBC Radio Ulster, commentary Kanye West's views on slavery
External collaboration:
Collective Encounters, Annette Burghes.
National Museums Liverpool, International Slavery Museum.
External committees:
Universities Studying Slavery Consortium Steering Committee, University of Virginia, International Representative.