Dr. Stephen Rockel

Biography

Stephen Rockel is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Toronto Scarborough. He specializes in African history, particularly focusing on East Africa, Southern Africa, and the Indian Ocean region. He completed his PhD at the University of Toronto and previously taught in the Department of Economic History at the University of Kwazulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, before returning to Toronto in 1999. His research interests encompass African social and cultural history, labor, slavery, urbanization, colonialism, environmental history, and the interplay of war and society in the African continent. He is the author of 'Carriers of Culture: Labor and the Road in Nineteenth-Century East Africa,' which earned the Joel Gregory Prize from the Canadian Association of African Studies. In 2009, he published 'Inventing Collateral Damage: Civilian Casualties, War, Empire' co-authored with Rick Halpern. His current projects involve examining the life histories of enslaved Africans and their descendants in Africa and analyzing the history of slavery and the slave trade in nineteenth-century East Africa, as well as investigating the historical significance of Tabora as a commercial city in Tanzania. He is also looking to explore the East African experience during World War.

Research Interests