Kitty Vega

Kitty Vega is a UKRI-funded PhD candidate working under the supervision of Professor Kate Newey as part of the WOMENTHEATRENET project. Her research considers 19th-century British women’s death, mourning, and funerary ritual as paratheatrical performance and explores how these coded behaviours were exported through imperial networks, with a particular focus on British colonial India, considering ideas of evangelical sensibilities, domestic ideologies, and the cultural politics of empire.

Kitty’s work investigates the intersections of performance and mourning within the context of empire, especially through missionary networks and cultural exchange. Her academic interests span performance studies, gender studies, Victorian studies, art history, death and mourning, ritual, cultural exchange, transnationalism, empire, and material culture. She is particularly drawn to how mourning practices both reflect and shape cultural identities across global contexts.