Diya Gupta

Dr. Diya Gupta is a Senior Lecturer in Public History at City St George's, University of London, where she explores intersections between visual culture, life-writing, and literature during wartime. Educated at Jadavpur University, University of Cambridge, and King’s College London, she previously held the Past & Present Postdoctoral Fellow: Race, Ethnicity and Equality in History at the Royal Historical Society and Institute of Historical Research (2020–2022), followed by a Postdoctoral Visiting Research Fellowship at the School of Advanced Study (2019–2020).

Her first monograph, India in the Second World War: An Emotional History (2023), examines undivided India's emotional responses to WWII through letters, memoirs, and colonial photographs, shortlisted for the Royal Historical Society's 2024 Gladstone Prize. Her current project investigates wartime violence targeting colonized civilians, focusing on the 1943 Bengal Famine as a lens for understanding modern food inequalities.

Dr. Gupta's recent publications span literary and visual analyses of WWII-era food deprivation, colonial photography, and marginalized narratives in academic and public history. She contributes to BBC Radio 4 programs, BBC dramas, and WWII computer games, and co-convenes the Teaching Empire and War workshop series. Her scientific awards include a HEA Fellowship and Fellowship of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS). She supervises AHRC-funded PhD research with the Imperial War Museums and has secured grants from HEIF and Clore Leadership.