Cambridge and India

Dr Annamaria Motrescu-Mayes is a Research Fellow at Clare Hall and a Research Associate at the Centre of South Asian Studies. Her principal research interests and publications consider the construction of South Asian racial, gender and political identities in visual records and their relevance to current historical studies. In collaboration with several Higher Education and research institutions in India, and with colleagues from the Faculties of Education and History at the University of Cambridge, she explores new research and pedagogical methodologies that use theories of visual culture in advancing modern South Asian history programs for the British A-level and Higher Education syllabus and for the Indian National Council of Educational Research and Training (Delhi). She teaches a course on ‘Visual rhetoric and modern South Asian history’ (since 2011), and convenes an annual seminar series on ‘Visual Constructions of South Asia’ (launched 2014). She has supervised MPhil students in South Asian modern history and visual culture. The goal of her research and teaching projects is to ensure durable collaborative research projects between the University of Cambridge and several South Asian universities and European research centers on the theme of ‘Teaching and Researching South Asian History with Visual Research Methods’.