Brett L. Shadle

As a first-generation college student, I graduated with a bachelor’s in history from Northern Illinois University, and went on to earn a doctorate in African history from Northwestern University. After several years teaching at the University of Mississippi, I arrived at Virginia Tech in 2005. I am associate director of the Virginia Tech Center for Refugee, Migrant, and Displacement Studies, which pursues research and teaching around issues of displacement, and works with displaced individuals locally and internationally.

My early research dealt with colonialism, the law, marriage, and gender in southwest Kenya, resulting in the 2006 book, ‘Girl Cases’: Marriage and Colonialism in Gusiiland, Kenya, 1890-1970. While I conducted smaller research projects on legal history and sexual violence in Kenya, my next book delved into issues of race and settler colonialism: The Souls of White Folk: White Settlers in Kenya, 1900–1920s.

Most recently, I’ve turned my attention to the history of refugees and completed a “state of the field” essay (in A Companion to African History). I am in the midst of research and writing a long book on the history of refugees who fled Ethiopia after the 1935 invasion by Italy. 

When working with students, I’m particularly interested in promoting study abroad and in dissecting issues of power, race, and paternalism that often arise in service learning projects, humanitarianism, and development.

A website, “African American Fourth of July,” summarizes the findings and analysis of students in an introductory history class who researched seven historical African American newspapers to trace the meanings behind Independence Day.