Robert E. Upton grew up in Liverpool and studied Modern History at Mansfield College, Oxford, eventually migrating to St Antony's College to read for a doctorate. He has since taught global and South Asian history at the University of Oxford, University of Leeds, and Cardiff University. In 2021 he took up a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellowship at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, in partnership with the Netaji Institute for Asian Studies, Kolkata. His ongoing research traces global and transnational histories of interlocking ideas relating to violence, masculinity, religious mobilisation, and political radicalism, in the colonial context.