The relationship between Oxford and Empire has recently been the subject of considerable attention, both within and outside the institution, and the intersecting areas of travel and translation are ones in which Oxford has played a particularly prominent role. The University of Oxford was a leading institution for the teaching of Orientalism and Oriental languages, and the training of imperial administrators. It was also instrumental in the development of anthropology as an academic discipline. This close relationship between Oxford and Empire is embodied in the many prominent translators and travellers who have studied and worked here, including William Jones, Edwin Arnold, Max Müller, T.E. Lawrence, Gertrude Bell, and Amitav Ghosh.
This series will bring together researchers in Oxford and elsewhere to foster interdisciplinary communication and a more consolidated examination of Oxford's imperial legacies. It will therefore include a diversity of scholars and students who are working in this area in different disciplines and fields.
Siobhan Daly is currently a student on the MSt in Literature and Arts at the University of Oxford. She has an MA from King’s College London and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in Text and Performance, as well as a BA (Hons) in English and History from Goldsmiths College, University of London. She has an interest in post-colonialism and Oxford’s influence on Empire.
Junie James, Jamaican by birth, is founder member and currently Director of ACKHI (African & African Caribbean Kultural Heritage Initiative). She is passionate about Afrikan history and the issue of reparations and the legacy and impact of enslavement on people of Black Afrikan heritage.
Malcolm Graham read History at Nottingham University before obtaining an M.A. in English Local History in 1970 and a PhD from Leicester University in 1985; his thesis was on the development of Oxford's Victorian suburbs. He has published extensively on Oxford and Oxfordshire and was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1999. He came to Oxford in 1970 as the city’s first full-time local-studies librarian and took on the same role for the county in 1974. Between 1991 and 2008, he was Head of Oxfordshire Studies with Oxfordshire County Council. His books include Images of Victorian Oxford (1992), Oxfordshire at War (1994), Diverse Oxfordshire (2010) and Oxford in the Great War (2014).