Jane Malcolm-Davies

Short presentation

I aim to build on my experience in analysing historical textiles, using reconstruction as a scholarly research method, and integrating craft expertise into academic investigation. I am keen to join interdisciplinary teams which apply both historical approaches and scientific methods to textile research. I’ve led the Knitting in Early Modern Europe project since my Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellowship at the University of Copenhagen. I am also co-director of The Tudor Tailor.

Biography

Jane Malcolm-Davies is docent and senior lecturer/associate professor of textile studies in the Art History Department at Uppsala University. She was a part-time postdoctoral researcher with 'Beasts2Craft' an interdisciplinary ERC project researching the history of parchment at the University of Copenhagen until October 2023. She was part-time director of THREAD, an Innovation Fund Denmark initiative, which developed a themed model for refugee integration using textiles as the catalyst for change at the Centre for Textile Research (CTR) at the University of Copenhagen. Jane is co-director of The Tudor Tailor, which researches and retails publications and products aimed at improving reconstructions of historical dress for pedagogical projects and heritage sites. Their most recent book is 'The Typical Tudor' (2023) which took a pioneering approach to documentary evidence for ordinary people's dress. She was a part-time senior postdoctoral researcher at Aalto University, Helsinki and a full-time Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow at CTR from 2015 to 2017, where she launched 'Knitting in Early Modern Europe' (KEME), developed an online database of evidence for this under-researched textile production process (www.kemeresearch.com), and published a new protocol for the scientific study of evidence for early knitting. Jane is also working on ways to integrate Analytical Tools for Organic Material Studies (ATOMS) into textile research. She was a part-time postdoctoral research fellow at the University of the Highlands & Islands (Centre for Interpretation Studies) and the University of Southampton, where she developed an online database of Tudor effigies (www.tudoreffigies.co.uk). She lectured in entrepreneurship and heritage management at the University of Surrey, introduced costumed interpreters at Hampton Court Palace (1992 to 2004), and coordinated training for the front-of-house team at Buckingham Palace each summer (2000 to 2010). The focus of her doctoral research was the educational benefits of reconstructed clothing in the visitor experience at historic sites. Her first degree is in journalism, and she has postgraduate diplomas in heritage interpretation and law. Jane sits on the editorial board of the 'Archaeological Textiles Review'.