I began my undergraduate degree in History and Politics at the University of Stirling in 2014 and graduated with first class honours in 2018. After completing my studies at Stirling, I undertook a Masters in History at the University of Liverpool and graduated with distinction in December 2019. In October 2020, I began an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Scottish Graduate School of Arts and Humanities (SGSAH) funded PhD at the University of Stirling. In addition to this, I am a Team Member on the AHRC-funded ‘Books & Borrowing Project: An Analysis of Scottish Borrowers’ Registers, 1750-1830’ and a volunteer guide at the Leighton Library, Dunblane.
Award
British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Postgraduate Conference Bursary Awarded a British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (BSECS) Postgraduate Conference Award, at BSECS's 52nd Annual Conference, ‘Homecoming, Return, and Recovery’, held between 4-6 January 2023 at St Hugh's College, University of Oxford.
Community Contribution
Volunteer guide at the Leighton Library, Dunblane
Other Academic Activities
Team Member of 'Books and Borrowing, 1750-1830: An Analysis of Scottish Borrowers' Registers' project.
https://borrowing.stir.ac.uk Team Member of 'Books and Borrowing, 1750-1830: An Analysis of Scottish Borrowers' Registers' project. https://borrowing.stir.ac.uk
This research project, jointly based at the Universities of Stirling and Glasgow, investigates the history of reading in Scotland in the period 1750 to 1830. One of its principal outcomes will be the creation of an open-access database of borrowing records from eighteen historic Scottish libraries. My duties have included undertaking primary research in archives, the transcription of project records, the entry of data into the project’s content management system, the writing of blog posts for the project website and the presentation of papers at academic conferences alongside other project researchers and academics.
Visiting doctoral scholar at Monticello, VA, USA. Awarded funding worth £18,788 by the Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities for a visiting doctoral researcher placement at Monticello, Virginia and to support further research and travel in the United States between June and September 2023.
Research
My research interests are in the intersection between the history of reading and political history in later eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain, as well as library history and book circulation in this period. My doctoral project examines political reading and association at British subscription libraries between 1800 and 1832, with a specific focus upon the records of two libraries, the Bristol Library Society and the Leighton Library, Dunblane. I have also researched the publication history and afterlives of the British anti-Jacobin novel between 1789 and 1818.
Baston K, Halsey K & Smith J (2024) Books and Borrowing: Agents, Access and Accountability, c. 1600-1850. Library And Information History, 40 (2), pp. 81-85. https://doi.org/10.3366/lih.2024.0171
Smith JJ (2024) Reading against Reform: The Bristol Library Society and the Intellectual Culture of Bristol's Elections in 1812. Parliamentary History, 43 (1), pp. 112-128. https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-0206.12725
Smith J (2023) The Minute Book of the Bristol Library Society, 1771–1801, by Max Skjönsberg and Mark Towsey (eds.). Review of: The Minute Book of the Bristol Library Society, 1771-1801, eds. Max Skjönsberg and Mark Towsey (Bristol: Bristol Record Society, 2022).. Library Information History, 39 (1), pp. 61-62. https://doi.org/10.3366/lih.2023.0139
Smith J (2023) Review: James Epstein and David Karr, British Jacobin Politics, Desires, and Aftermaths: Seditious Hearts (London: Routledge, 2021) in Romance, Revolution & Reform 5 (Jan 2023).. Review of: James Epstein and David Karr, British Jacobin Politics, Desires, and Aftermaths: Seditious Hearts (London: Routledge, 2021).. Romance, Revolution and Reform, (5), pp. 132-136. https://www.rrrjournal.com/issue-5/r.3.-review%3A-james-epstein-and-david-karr%2C-british-jacobin-politics%2C-desires%2C-and-aftermaths%3A-seditious-hearts