Dr Anna Bruzzone

I’m a historian of modern Africa, with a focus on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I studied history at the University of Bologna (BA, MA) and political science, African studies at Panthéon-Sorbonne University - Paris I (MRes). I’m an alumna of Collegio Superiore, the school of excellence of the University of Bologna. In Paris I also studied Arabic language and culture at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilisations (INALCO). After a crossover into consulting and specialist journalism I received a PhD in History from the University of Warwick. For my doctoral thesis on colonialism, state formation, and resistance in the Somalia-Kenya borderlands I carried out archival research and oral history interviews in Kenya, Somalia, Italy, and the UK. Before joining SOAS I taught African history at the University of Warwick, and modern European and global history at Oriel College, University of Oxford. My main research focus is the history of Somali East Africa during the colonial period. I’m particularly interested in anticolonial resistance, nationalism, borderland politics, intersectionality and power dynamics at the crossroads of empires and cultures. I’m currently adapting my PhD thesis for publication as a monograph.