Dr Rachel Lichtenstein

Dr Rachel Lichtenstein

Reader in English

My profile

Biography

I am an artist, author and curator with an international reputation for writing books, collaborating on multi-media projects and creating artworks that examine place, and explore themes of memory and identity. I currently combine writing and research with a post as Reader in the English and Department at Manchester Met University, where I co-direct the Centre for Place Writing. I am also an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Manchester’s Centre for Jewish Studies, a member of the International Advisory Panel for the Foundation of Jewish Heritage and on the Collections Advisory Network at London’s Jewish Museum. My latest projects involve deep research into Jewish settlement in East London, Manchester and the Caribbean. Although I am probably best known for my books I originally trained as a sculptor, which gave me a unique way of looking at the world. I use many of the methodologies and creative practises I developed during my art training in my writing, which is experimental in its format and often involves collaborations with practioners in other disciplines including film, archaeology, performance, digital technology and historical geography. Alongside writing and making artwork I curate and host literary festivals and events, write articles for newspapers and periodicals. I travel a lot of for research and love spending time in archives and libraries.

Interests and expertise

My unique multi-media community-engaged site-specific creative praxis has produced multiple outcomes including exhibitions, digital projects, academic articles, conference papers and acclaimed publications. I have also co-curated multiple festivals and exhibitions and project managed collaborative archive and oral history projects. My recordings can be found in archives and museums around the world. Other recent projects include the development of a Strategic Vision for a Proposed Jewish Quarter in East London for Tower Hamlets Council, fundraising for conservation work at Sandys Row Synagogue and the development of digital memory maps exploring Jewish heritage in London and Manchester.

I have been working in Jewish heritage as a researcher, curator, tour guide, artist, educator, project manager, archivist, oral historian, academic and writer for over thirty years. My research focuses on Jewish culture and settlement, with a particular expertise in the urban history of the former Jewish East End. I bring different perspectives to projects from the disciplines of Art, Jewish, Urban and Social History, Creative Writing and Literature. 

Get in touch

0161 247 1751
5.03 Grosvenor East Building
email for an appointment
Place Writing is an active, dynamic process that involves a deep interaction with people and environments. Get walking - immerse yourself in your subject by being there physically with your feet on the ground.
Rachel Lichtenstein (co-director of the Centre for Place Writing)

Projects

PLACE 2020. (2020-21) new digital platform that examines how ideas of ‘place’ shifted radically amid the global Coronavirus-enforced lockdown. Since launching the site has had over 19k views and received press coverage in The BookSeller, Radio 4’s Film Programme and Countryfile Magazine.  www.placewriting.co.uk

Memory Map of Jewish Manchester (2021) funded by Jewish Historical Society of England is now part of the online collections at the Manchester Jewish Museum www.manchesterjewishmuseum.com/collection/online-collection

Vanished Streets: Photographs of lost Jewish Manchester (People’s History Museum, 2021) https://phm.org.uk/exhibitions/vanished-streets-an-exhibition-of-photographs-of-lost-jewish-manchester-from-the-1970s-by-shloimy-alman/

Podcasts with Iain Sinclair and Ken Worpole (2021) Estuary Festival https://www.estuaryfestival.com/event/detail/from-the-archive-rachel-lichtenstein.html

Memory Map of the Jewish East End (2020) [digital project] 23rd March. https://jewisheastendmemorymap.org [accessed 14th Nov 2020]. Content provider for new digital resource allowing users to explore former sites of Jewish memory in East London. The project is a collaboration between Dr Rachel Lichtenstein (MMU) and Dr Duncan Hay, Professor Laura Vaughan, and Peter Guillery, from across four different research units based at the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL): the Faculty for the Built Environment,  the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, the Space Syntax Laboratory, and the Survey of London. Funded by Bartlett Materialisation Grant (£50k). To date the site has had over 25k visits with press coverage in the Jewish Chronicle, Sunday Times and Times of Israel.

Our Hidden Histories (2014 – 2019) www.ourhiddenhistories.com. Oral history and local community heritage project (funded HLF 2014-2016)

Histories of the Hoo Peninsula: Memories of Working Lives (2016 - 2017) Multi-disciplinary oral history and archive project,funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Project manager working in collaboration with Whitstable Biennale, Medway Archives & History Centre in Kent and local volunteers. http://hoo-peninsula.com/about/

The Immigrants of Spitalfields Festival (2016) a multi-venue celebration of the lives and culture of all migrant communities to East London. The festival was an initiative between the Swadhinata Trust, Sandys Row Synagogue and Huguenots of Spitalfields https://rachellichtenstein.com/the-immigrants-of-spitalfields-festival/

Teaching

I teach creative nonfiction writing, place writing, prose and novel writing and reading units for novels and creative nonfiction. I have combined teaching with my own creative practise for over twenty-five years, working in galleries, museums, schools, universities and many other institutions running workshops and residential courses, alongside lecturing, mentoring and supervising students. I am passionate about what I do and enjoy sharing the experiences, pitfalls and shortcuts I have learnt along the way as well as the advice that has been imparted to me over the years from the many other artists and writers I have been lucky enough to work alongside. Writing, researching and teaching are all collaborative processes for me, and an essential part of my working life as an author. 

Creative Writing

Embark on our creative writing degree and from the very start you’ll study and practise the art and craft of writing in a wide range of established and new forms, from prose fiction, screenwriti…

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Creative Writing

On our Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programme, you will explore and practice techniques and styles of modern and contemporary writing and apply these through the development of your own full-length book …

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Creative Writing

At the heart of the Manchester Writing School are our masters programmes in Creative Writing, available to study on campus in Manchester and also from anywhere in the world via online distance learnin…

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Supervision

I currently supervise numerous PhD students, from the Writing and Art Schools, working on combined creative and critical PhD’s exploring place in different ways. 

Research outputs

BOOKS

Lichtenstein, R., Sinclair, I. (authors) Hoepffner, B., Peugeot, M.C., (translators) (2018). La Secret de la Chambre de Rodinsky. Paris: Incultedermarge. ISBN-13: 979-1095086888

Lichtenstein, R. (2016). Estuary: Out from London to the Sea. 1st ed., London: Hamish Hamilton. ISBN-10: 0241142881/ISBN-13: 978-0241142882

Lichtenstein, R. (2012). Diamond Street: the hidden world of Hatton Garden. London: Penguin. ISBN-10: 0241142873/ ISBN-13: 978-0241142875

Lichtenstein, R., Sinclair, I. (2011) La Stanza di Rodinsky. Italy: Nutrimenti. ISBN-10: 8865940859/ ISBN-13: 978-8865940853

Lichtenstein, R. (2007). On Brick Lane. 1st ed., London: Penguin. ISBN:10: 0141018518

Lichtenstein, R. (2004). A Little Dust Whispered. 1st ed., London: British Library. ISBN 10: 0712348832 ISBN 13: 9780712348836

Lichtenstein, R. (2003). Keeping Pace: Older Women in The East End. London:Women’s Library.

Lichtenstein, R. & Sinclair, I. (authors) Hoepffner, B., Peugeot, M.C., (translators) (2002). Le Secret de la Chambre de Rodinsky. Paris: Du Rocher. ISBN-10 : 2268041417 ISBN-13 : 978-2268041414

Lichtenstein, R., Sinclair, I. (2001). Rodinsky’s Kramer. Amsterdam: Meulenhoff.

Lichtenstein, R., Sinclair, I. (2001).  Rodinsky’s Raum. Berlin: Claassen. ISBN-10 : 3548600913, ISBN-13 : 978-3548600918.

Lichtenstein, R., Sinclair, I. (1999). Rodinsky’s Room. 1st ed., London: Granta. ISBN 10: 1862072574 / ISBN 13: 9781862072572

Lichtenstein, R., Sinclair, I. (1999). Rodinsky’s Whitechapel. London: Artangel. ISBN-10 : 190220106X ISBN-13 : 978-1902201061

Chapters in books

Lichtenstein, R. (2021). ‘Where Sky Meets the Sea.’ In Norbury, K. (ed.) Women and Nature. London: Unbound.

Lichtenstein, R. (2021) ‘Magazine Lane.’ (ed. Sinclair, I.) Unlocking the Grid: A Documentary Novel of the Plague Year. Surrey: Potential Books. pp. ISBN 978-1-914324-00-0

Gray, A., Finneran, N., Lichtenstein, R. (2020). ‘A free prospect to the sea:’ Framing an urban archaeological biography of Speightstown (St Peter Parish). In (eds., de Waal, Maaike S., Finneran, N., Reilly, M., Armstrong, C., Douglas V., Farmer, K.) Pre-colonial and post-contact archaeology in Barbados: Past, present, and future research directions. Netherlands: Sidestone Press. ISBN: 9789088908453

Burrows, T., Darley, G., Holland, C., Lichtenstein, R., Lubbock, J., Twyman, J., Worpole, K. (2018). ‘Bata-Ville.’ In Radical Essex. Manchester: Cornerhouse Publications. ISBN 9781907185212

Lichtenstein, R. (2016). ‘Cecil Gee.’ In Selby, E. (ed.) Moses, Mods and Mr Fish: The Menswear Revolution. London: Jewish Museum London. ISBN 10: 1364254476 / ISBN 13: 9781364254476

Lichtenstein, R. (2013). ‘Simon Blumenfield, Jew Boy (1935).’ In Whitehead, A. & White, J. (eds.) London Fictions. Nottingham: Five Leaves Press. pp.95 – 104. ISBN 1907869662

Lichtenstein, R. (2012). ‘Introduction.’ In Poole, R., London E1. Nottingham: Five Leaves Press. pp.5 -17. ISBN: 9781907869624

Lichtenstein, R. (2009). ‘On Brick Lane.’ In Reyes, H. (ed.) City Lit London: Perfect gems of city writing. (2009) London: Oxygen Press. pp.105-108. ISBN-10 : 0955970059, ISBN-13 : 978-0955970054

Lichtenstein, R. (2006). ‘The Lost Yiddish Poet of London: Avrum Nachum Stencl.’ In (ed., Sinclair, I.) London: City of Disappearances. 1st ed., London: Hamish Hamilton. pp.197-210. ISBN-10: 0241142997, ISBN-13 : 978-0241142998

Lichtenstein, R. (2006). ‘Stephen Turner in Conversation with Rachel Lichtenstein.’ In (ed.,Turner, S.) Seafort. pp. 81 – 85. Kent: The Seafort Project. ISBN 10: 0955457300ISBN 13: 9780955457302

Dein, A., Lichtenstein, R. (2001). ‘University of The Ghetto; Stories of the Whitechapel Library.’  In Centenary Review: Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1901-2001. London: Whitechapel Gallery. pp. 9-13. ISBN 978-0-8548-8126-0

Articles in refereed journals

Lichtenstein, R. (2018). ‘The Search for the Lost Synagogue of Speightstown.’ Journal of Barbados Museum & Historical Society. Vol LXIV, 85th Anniversary edition. Barbados: Barbados Museum. pp.196-226.

Finneran, N., Lichtenstein, R., Welch, C. (2018). ‘Place, space and memory in the old Jewish East End of London: An Archaeological Biography of Sandys Row Synagogue, Spitalfields, and its wider context’. International Journal of Historical Archaeology.

Press and media

Recent media appearances include BBC Radio London Robert Elms show, Radio 3: Nightwaves, Radio 4: Women’s Hour, Midweek and Thinking Aloud, BBC 2: Newsnight, BBC London News (TV), Countryfile and BBC programme Who Do You think You Are? 

I also write regularly for newspapers and periodicals including The Independent, Evening Standard and The Guardian. My work has been widely reviewed in the national press. For more information visit www.rachellichtenstein.com