About Christina
Dr Christina Faraday is a historian of art and ideas, with a special interest in how images and objects can communicate in powerful ways. She is a Research Fellow at Gonville and Caius, University of Cambridge, and specialises in the art and architecture of Tudor England.
Growing up in Letchworth Garden City, she attended Highfield school, before going to St John's College, Cambridge to study History of Art. She graduated with a First, and was a recipient of the Larmor Award 'for students who excel both academically and in other aspects of life during their time in Cambridge'. She stayed at Cambridge to complete an MPhil and a PhD.
In 2019, Christina was chosen as one of ten 'AHRC/BBC New Generation Thinkers', a scheme which gives early career academics the chance to share their work with wider audiences. She is also a Founding Expert for PlaceCloud, an app which shares geolocated podcasts, which can also be found on Spotify.
Her AHRC-funded PhD research focused on ‘liveliness’ or vividness in English art in the sixteenth century. Her MPhil research explored the symbolism of clocks and watches in Tudor portraits, and has been published in Renaissance Studies.
Christina also has curatorial experience. Alongside her PhD, with support from the AHRC, she worked for two years part-time as a Curatorial Intern at the National Portrait Gallery, London, on the exhibition 'Elizabethan Treasures: Miniatures by Hilliard and Oliver' (21st February - 19th May 2019). She has previous experience at the V&A in London.
At Cambridge she lectures, supervises and assesses undergraduate courses as an Affiliated Lecturer in the History of Art Department, and runs courses as a tutor for the Institute for Continuing Education at Madingley Hall.
She contributes regularly to popular media outlets including BBC Radio 3, Apollo Magazine. An article she wrote for The Telegraph was nominated for a British Journalism Award in the Arts and Entertainment Category. She is represented by the literary agency Georgina Capel Associates.
In her spare time, Christina plays the violin and viola, and loves string chamber music. She makes art, particularly pottery and embroidery, and writes ghost stories. When in search of inspiration, she goes for walks to look at nature and architecture.