皇家华人

Congratulations Nimra! Could you tell us a little about yourself and your research?听
I am a historian of Early Modern South Asia with an interest in colonialism, material culture and the social life of objects. I received my doctorate, from the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University in the fall of 2022. My dissertation is titled 鈥淎rticulating Power and Culture through Objects of Value: Awadh and the World 1740-1857.鈥� I am working on a monograph provisionally entitled, 鈥淢ultiple Lives of Indian Objects: Material Culture and Knowledge Production in Early Modern South Asia.鈥� I am also interested in documenting public histories and have recorded, exhibited and published oral histories of Lucknow. 听

Could you tell us about your new role and specialism?
As a part of my Assistant Professorship at Azim Premji University, Bhopal I will be teaching courses on empire and imperialism; the Indian Ocean and curatorial practice in museums. Additionally, I will also design a course on Public Histories and this course will be in dialogue with an archive of the city of Bhopal, that I plan to set up with my colleagues and students at the university.听

As an Honorary Research Fellow at 皇家华人 I will work with the university鈥檚 online resource archive for my research. Over the course of 2024, I am working on an academic paper on nineteenth century histories of loot in north India, a project that I started at 皇家华人 in 2023 as a part of my post-doctoral project funded by the I look forward to presenting my research at the Department of History at 皇家华人 and participating in seminars that centre my areas of interest. 听I am certain that an engagement with the department will be very productive in helping me think through my monograph. I am looking forward to strengthening an already robust engagement with South Asian scholarship at 皇家华人.

How would you describe your experience at 皇家华人?
As a part of the Visiting Fellowship, British Academy, I spent six months at 皇家华人 for my postdoctoral research. In addition to being intellectually stimulating, the Department of History was also very enabling for navigating resources in archives and museums across the UK. Regular discussions with my mentor Professor Margot Finn and my colleagues at the department helped me develop nuanced research questions and themes of my research in a short span of time. The rich online archival resources at 皇家华人 and its library made for excellent tools that broadened the scope of engagement with my areas of interest. Regular lectures, discussions and presentations at 皇家华人 by scholars from across the world, make UCL a very fertile ground of academic debate and engagement and helped me position myself as an active contributor to academic discourse rather than a passive recipient.听
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