Exhibition Feature: Untold Lives

In this episode, host Ellie Woodacre interviews Dr Mishka Sinha, co-curator of the Untold Lives: A Palace at Work exhibition at Historic Royal Palaces (running until 27 October 2024). In the interview we discuss how the development of the exhibition. the ways it which it reveals the hidden histories of palace courtiers and servants and the unexpected modern twist which brings the past and present inhabitants of the palace together.

Episode Notes:

• Polly Putnam is co-curator of the exhibition
• Clarification--during the discussion of fires at Kensington Palace it should be noted that the palace nearly burnt down three times

Guest Bio: Mishka is a cultural and intellectual historian of global and imperial history from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Her interdisciplinary research interests include the histories of universities, knowledge, texts, oriental languages, cultural and material heritage, women’s history, and underrepresented people and cultures in Europe, the United States and Asia. Mishka received her B.A. degree from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, an M.Phil from the University of Oxford, and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. She has taught at several UK and continental European universities and received several research grants and fellowships including a British Academy PDF at Cambridge, a Max Weber Fellowship in Florence, and others at Edinburgh, Oxford and Berlin. Mishka has worked with museums and heritage in India, and collaborated as an actor and performer with a contemporary Indian artist on multiple projects since 2003. 

• Blog Posts written by Dr Sinha
  • HRP: The tale of Abdullah and 'the Shah Goest'
  • HRP: Searching for the young Black man in the portrait of William III, with Camilla de Koning
    • Part I 
    • Part II
  • St. John's College, Oxford