Vivek Gupta is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at UCL (2023-26) where he focuses on the art and architecture of medieval and early modern South Asia and the broader Islamic and Indian Ocean worlds. From 2020 to 2023, he served as a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Cambridge, where he continues to co-direct Hindustani Airs: Music, Pleasure, and Cultural Exchange in Courtly Lucknow with Senior Curator, Dr Suzanne Reynolds, at the Fitzwilliam Museum.
Vivek’s first book, Worldshaping Wonders: Books and Visual Knowledge in Early Modern India, is under contract and argues that the experience of wonder was central to shaping, educating, and transforming worlds in Hindustan. His second project, Manuscript as Monument, focuses on scribes, illuminators, and architectural design in the Deccan and transregional fifteenth century. Recent work on this project include contributions to Marg’s landmark publication of The Chandayan and Calligraphies en caractères arabes dans les zones frontières du monde islamique (CallFront).
Vivek is also committed to public humanities and cross-disciplinary collaboration. From 2020 to 2024, he collaborated with organizations in India to produce the webinar, From Konkan to Coromandel: Cultures and Societies of the Deccan World. He regularly contributes to The Art Newspaper on the status of heritage in South Asia. His several articles on the British Library’s Asian and African Studies blog have made his work on Indo-Islamic manuscripts available to global audiences. Other recent public-facing scholarship has reframed the concept of wonder for Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online.