Dr Gursimran Oberoi
Academic and research departments
Mobilities in Literature and Culture Research Centre, School of Literature and Languages, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.About
Biography
Gursimran Oberoi is a published art historian who specialises in the international reception of Victorian art. Her upcoming monograph, Global Watts: Symbolism, Fame and Activism (1880-Present Day), examines the display and appropriation of symbolist artworks by George Frederic Watts in the International Women’s Rights, Indian Independence and African American Civil Rights Movements. She has also published on Victorian art, gender, race and activism in various publications. Gursimran is an Associate Teaching Fellow at the University of Surrey, KCATO Manager at King’s College London and a Trustee at Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village.
Biography
Gursimran Oberoi is an AHRC, TECHNE and NPIF funded PhD student at the University of Surrey and Watts Gallery - Artists' Village where she studies under the direction of Dr Constance Bantman, Dr Nicholas Tromans, Dr Cicely Robinson and Prof Patricia Pulham. Her research project entitled ‘Global Watts: Allegories for All (1880-1980)’ provides a comprehensive assessment of the international importance and influence of British artist George Frederic Watts (1817-1904). Gursimran is Chair of the Doctoral and Early Career Research Committee (DECR) for the Association For Art History. She was previously the Assistant Director of the Centre for Victorian Studies, Royal Holloway, University of London.
News
In the media
ResearchResearch interests
- Transnational Art History
- Victorian Art, Literature and Culture
- Mobilities Studies and Material Culture
- Art Object Circulation
- Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Networks, Collecting and Exchanges
- Art and Activism
- Social History
Research projects
TECHNE and BAVS funded project 'In/visibility and Influence: G. F. Watts’s Artistic Networks and Circuits of Expertise', Getty Research Institute (October-November 18)
Research interests
- Transnational Art History
- Victorian Art, Literature and Culture
- Mobilities Studies and Material Culture
- Art Object Circulation
- Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Networks, Collecting and Exchanges
- Art and Activism
- Social History
Research projects
TECHNE and BAVS funded project 'In/visibility and Influence: G. F. Watts’s Artistic Networks and Circuits of Expertise', Getty Research Institute (October-November 18)
Teaching
- Undergraduate Dissertation Supervision: topics of literature, art, culture, gender, race and sexuality.
- Fin-De-Siècle Literature: Decadence, Aesthetics And The Occult.
- Theories of Reading.
- Histories of English Literature.
Publications
Forthcoming Oberoi, G. (2024) Global Watts: Symbolism, Fame and Activism (1880-Present Day).
Oberoi, G. (2023) 'The Collective Self-Portrait: Drawing Elizabeth Siddal in the New Woman Sisterhood’, in The Rossettis, ed. Carol Jacobi, London: Tate.
Oberoi, G. (2021) 'Victorian Paintings Under Attack: The Earliest Act of Suffrage Iconoclasm (1913)', in Women’s Suffrage in Word, Image, Music and Drama: The Making of a Movement, ed. Christopher Wiley and Lucy Ella Rose, London: Routledge.
Oberoi, G. ‘Women’s Suffrage Attacks Against Art: Recontextualised’, Courtauld’s Gender and Sexuality Group, Online.
Oberoi, G. ‘Protesting Watts: The Origin of Suffrage Iconoclasm’, Watts Gallery Blog, 3rdApr, Online.
Oberoi, G. ‘G. F. Watts’s Artistic Networks’, BAVS Newsletter, Issue 18.3, pp. 16-7.
Selected Invited Lectures and Conferences
Invited Lecture: 'Global Watts: How International Communities Reshape the Legacy of "England's Michelangelo"', President's Panel, BAVS Annual Conference, 3 Sep 2022.
Invited Lecture: 'Global Watts: The Making and Remaking of England's Michelangelo', Modern Pre-Raphaelites Exhibition Opening, Leamington Spa Art Gallery and Museum, 9 Sep 2022.
Invited Lecture: 'A Victorian Michelangelo: The Global Legacy of G.F. Watts's Symbolism', Art History Festival, The National Gallery and AAH, 25 Sep 2021.
Invited Lecture: 'William Morris's "Strawberry Theif", Digitial Workshop Objects in Focus: Decolonising Victorian Art and Design?, Race, Empire and the Pre-Raphaelites: Decolonising Victorian Art and Design through Museum Collections and Practice, 28 Jan 2021.
Conference Co-Organiser: DECR's New Voices, Sculpture & Literature, in partnership with Henry Moore Institute and University of Leeds, Association for Art History, 20-21st October.
Conference Co-Organiser: DECR's Summer Symposium, Global Britain: Decolonising Art's Histories, Association for Art History, 21st Jun, 9th Sept and 22nd Sept.
Conference Co-Organiser: DECR's Global New Voices, Association for Art History, 19th-20th Nov 2020.
Invited Roundtable Speaker: ‘William Morris’s “Strawberry Thief”’, (Digital Workshop) Objects in Focus: Decolonising Victorian Art and Design?, Race, Empire and the Pre-Raphaelites: Decolonising Victorian Art and Design through Museum Collections and Practice, 28th Jan 2021.
Invited speaker: ‘Global Watts: When Victorian Painting and Sculpture Meet International Communities’, New Directions in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Art (NDENCA), Digital Series, 25th Jan 2021.
Conference paper: ‘Recovering The Archive: G. F. Watts and The Victorians’ Futurity At Manchester Art Gallery, 1913’, Victorian Renewals, British Association for Victorian Studies (BAVS), University of Dundee, 28th-30th Aug 2019.
Conference paper: ‘Photography, Surveillance and Press: G. F. Watts and The Victorians’ Futurity At Manchester City Art Gallery, 1913’, Photography and Printed Matter – The Association for Art History’s Summer Symposium, University of St Andrews, 3rd-4th Jun 2019.
Invited speaker: ‘She Shall Be Called Woman: The Legacy and Controversy Surrounding G. F. Watts’s Art and the Women’s Suffrage Campaign’, Gender, Radicalism and Reform, Royal Holloway, University of London, 15th May 2019.
Roundtable: Archives, Archaeology, History and Collections, The Paul Mellon Centre Doctoral Researchers Network Summer Symposium 2019, Paul Mellon Centre, 10th May 2019.
Chair: ECR Keynote: Helen Goodman (Bath Spa) ‘Radicalism, Reform, and Victorian Insanity: A Medical Humanities Approach’, Radicalism and Reform in the Long Nineteenth-Century: The London Victorian Studies Colloquium, Royal Holloway, University of London, 27th Apr 2019.
Conference paper:‘She Shall Be Called Woman: The Legacy and Controversy Surrounding G. F. Watts’s Art and the Women’s Suffrage Campaign’, Victorian Futures, Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States, 8th-10th Nov 2018.
Conference paper: ‘She Shall Be Called Woman: Allegory and Feminism in G. F. Watts’s Art’Centennial Reflections on Women’s Suffrage and the Arts: Local, National, Transnational, International Conference, University of Surrey, 29th-30th Jun 2018.