Jessica Rapson

Dr. Jessica Rapson is a Reader in Memory Studies at King's College London's Department of Culture, Media & Creative Industries (Faculty of Arts & Humanities), where she has taught since 2013. She holds a BA in Critical Fine Art Practice from the University of Brighton, an MA in Cultural Memory from the University of London, and a PhD from Goldsmiths College. Her research bridges cultural memory studies, environmental humanities, and heritage politics, with a focus on transcultural memorialization and the intersection of climate change with cultural narratives.

Rapson's interdisciplinary work examines the mediation of memory through landscapes, literature, and heritage institutions. Her core research areas include:

• The politics of Holocaust and atrocity commemoration
• Environmental racism and heritage in the American South
• Planetary memory and climate change narratives
• Dark tourism and difficult heritage sites
• Transcultural memory across national borders

Her publications demonstrate a consistent evolution from Holocaust memorial studies toward environmental justice, with recent work analyzing plantation tourism, industrial pollution, and racial capitalism in Gulf Coast heritage sites. Articles frequently engage with spatial justice, anthropogenic landscapes, and the globalization of memory discourses.

Awards and recognitions include:

• King’s Teaching Excellence Award for Student Support (2016)
• Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy
• Co-chair of the 'Transformation of the Environment' working group (COST Action)

Rapson leads the British Academy/Leverhulme project 'Processing Memory: Heritage, Industry, and Environmental Racism in the American Gulf States' with Lucy Bond. She co-founded the London Consortium for Cultural Memory Studies and serves on editorial boards for Memory Studies and The Memory Studies Review. As Graduate Teaching Assistant Lead, she developed the Arts-Based Research Project curriculum.