Dr Parul Singh

Parul Singh is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the interdisciplinary programme 4A Laboratory: Art Histories, Archaeologies, Anthropologies, Aesthetics (May 2021–May 2024) at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut. She received her PhD from the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. Her doctoral thesis re-examines the visual culture of Awadh (Oudh) during the 1847–56 reign of Wajid Ali Shah in the light of its complex sociopolitical milieu, royal aspirations, tastes, influences and underlying traditions. Her study contends that visual culture – including gardens and their metaphors – played a prominent role in maintaining and fortifying the power of the king in mid-nineteenth-century Awadh; it also shows how the cultural arena was turned into a site of sociopolitical negotiation and contestation between two major contenders: King Wajid Ali Shah and the British East India Company.