Robert James Taylor

Robert Taylor
DPhil Student
New College
robert.taylor@new.ox.ac.uk

Research Topic

A Trip to India: Cultural Indophilia, British 'Hippiedom', and Post-Imperial Memory

Supervisor: Yasmin Khan

 

  • I am interested in how radical or transgressive ideas have spread between global cultures and communities, during periods of socio-cultural change, and the ways in which such ideas intersect with historical memory. I aim to trace this process comparatively, through multiple historical periods, building upon interdisciplinary approaches. 

 

  • My current research considers the influence of an imagined 'India' on the British cultural output of the mid-late 1960s and early 1970s, connecting the fields of 'Modern British' and 'Global and Imperial' history. It investigates British 'hippies' and their romanticised fascination with a reified idea of India, often expressed through artistic means, in order to analyse post-1945 British society's mutable understandings of its recent imperial past.

 

  • I received a Double First Class degree in History after studying as an undergraduate at New College, Oxford, and completed my MPhil in American History at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Before returning to Oxford, I worked in London for various educational and Social Impact-focused organisations, as well as performing music professionally.

 

Awards, Funding, and Recognition 

  • New College Senior Scholarship (2024-)
  • Awarded historical funding from the Reynolds Bequest for a research trip across India (2025-6)
  • Awarded a grant from the TORCH Critical-Thinking Communities Fund for the Humans in Humanities interdisciplinary research group, of which I am a founding member (2025-6)
  • Winner of the H. W. C. Davis Prize for the highest overall mark in the Preliminary Examinations in History at Oxford, placing 1st in my cohort of more than 250 historians
  • New College Academic Scholarship (2017-19) and New College Collection Prizes
  • Awarded historical funding from the Reynolds Bequest to visit the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, Virginia
  • Achieved a First Class degree in the Oxford History Final Honours School, placing in the top 5% of History students overall

 

Selected Publications 

 

Selected Presentations 

 

Public History

 

Previous Research 

  • Undergraduate dissertation - "a Catholicke in his profession, no man more: a reporter of things he saw or knew, no man truer": Robert Dallington's Aphorismes and the English Reception of Guicciardini 
  • MPhil dissertation - Hemispheric Indigenous History in the Early American Republic, 1783-1808
  • Familial research featured in Chowkidar: The Journal of the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia 17/1 (2024), pp. 3-4, 12.

 

Teaching, Access & Outreach

  • I have successfully supervised undergraduate dissertations in History and Politics for students at Cambridge, UCL, Edinburgh, Leeds, Newcastle, Nottingham, and Exeter. Topics include the UDI period of Rhodesian history, Lovers Rock and Reggae, the Battle of Cable Street, Lincoln's political career, McCarthyism and the New Republic, Neville's The Ladies Parliament, and the First Eastern General Hospital Gazette. 
  • I have organised and delivered thematic revision tutorials for undergraduate students at Oxford, Cambridge, and UCL, in preparation for their final year exams in History.
  • I am currently tutoring numerous History A Level students in a partnership between Wadham College and a tuition agency, which seeks to remove financial barriers to private tuition.
  • I work part-time for the History Faculty as a Graduate Outreach Tutor, and Researcher in Residence at a local state secondary school, aiming to improve student access to studying History at Oxford. Likewise, I have delivered Access & Outreach events at numerous Oxford colleges, including Oxplore livestreams for secondary school students. 
  • I have completed the Faculty course, Preparation for Learning and Teaching at Oxford (PLTO), observing the 'Pop and the Art of the Sixties' Special Subject. I have also assisted with New College undergraduate admissions in Ancient History, for AMH and Lit Hum applicants.