Jacki Willson

Jacki Willson is an Associate Professor in Performance and Gender in the School of Performance and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds in the UK. She is the author of ‘The Happy Stripper’ (2008) and ‘Being Gorgeous’ (2015) and has co-edited two books, ‘Revisiting the Gaze’ (2020) and ‘Dangerous Bodies’ (2023). From 2020-2023 she was Principal Investigator on a 3 year Arts and Humanities Research Culture funded project which focused on the UK’s burlesque industry exploring the transformative (social, psychological and political) role of costume. She is currently PI on a one year follow on AHRC funded project, ‘Self-Worth as a Community Asset’. The project is seeking to understand burlesque’s protected and deregulated spaces as a model of good practice which will be shared more broadly with the Night-Time Industry Association and other relevant stakeholders.