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About
Alisha Ma is a full-time PhD candidate in the Department of International History at LSE. Her work is fully supported by a London Arts and Humanities Partnership (LAHP) PhD studentship, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
Alisha holds a BSc in Politics and History from LSE as well as an MPhil in Early Modern History from the University of Cambridge. Prior to beginning her PhD at LSE, she has also worked as a full-time doctoral researcher at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam on a European Research Council (ERC) funded project.
Expertise Details: Long eighteenth century; Global art history; Decorative arts; Collecting and display practices; Colonial aesthetics
Research Topic: Alisha's research is focused on the construction of European colonial ideologies and aesthetics over the long 18th century. Her PhD project explores this through a case study of Queen Mary II's collections of art, luxury commodities and botanical specimens as well as their spaces of display at Hampton Court Palace and Kensington Palace. Situated in the context of the Glorious Revolution and England's emergence as a global imperial power, the project draws on diverse perspectives and methodologies across global, cultural, and art history to highlight the importance of this period in the development of colonial narratives and worldviews across Europe, and particularly in England. She is especially interested in understanding how gender, space, visual and material culture all functioned as instruments of imperial imagination at the hands of European collectors, designers, and craftspeople.
Provisional thesis title: 'Aesthetic Experience and Colonial Worldmaking in the Collection Spaces of Queen Mary II at Hampton Court Palace and Kensington Palace, 1689-94'
Supervisor: Dr Paul Stock