Shaun Wallace is a Senior Lecturer in U.S. History.

He is a social historian of slavery, specialising in the study of fugitive slaves and fugitivity in the U.S. South during the early republic. His research interests, broadly, include slavery, African American history; US print culture; enslaved literature; and digital humanities. His doctoral thesis examined fugitive slave advertisements in early national Georgia and Maryland. A major output of the project was the Fugitive Slave Database (FSdb), a unique digital archive preserving more than 12,500 American fugitivity advertisements from Georgia, Maryland, South Carolina, and Virginia.

His first monograph, In Pursuit of Freedom: Fugitive Slaves and Advertised Escape in the Early Republic, will be published by the University of Georgia Press.  

Shaun was awarded his PhD (ESRC) from the University of Stirling in January 2018, before being appointed as a postdoctoral research assistant on a multi-institutional digital humanities project. Prior to this, he completed an MRes in Historical Research and BA Hons in History. 

Shaun is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). His teaching experience began in 2015 and he has taught in higher education systems across England and Scotland. Before joining the Univeristy of Bristol in 2018, Shaun was a Teaching Assistant at the University of Stirling and a Teaching Associate at the University of Dundee.

Shaun has extensive experience of designing and delivering specialist undergraduate and postgradaute modules with a U.S. focus, and has taught extensively on modules with a focus on modern British and U.S. History. Shaun is the unit director of several modules at the University of Bristol, including the  final year History dissertation unit, as well as the popular Y1 unit, The American Century, and his specialist unit, Rebels, Runaways, and Revolutionaries: Agency and Slavery in the United States. 

Shaun has administrative roles within the Department of Historical Studies, School of Humanities, and wider Faculty of Arts, Law, and Social Sciences. He is the co-head of Y3, a Bristol Clear Mentor, a departmental mentor (TSR/PhD), CREATE Assessor and Mentor, and a reviewer (SWWDTP).

Shaun regularly supervises undergraduate and postgraduate research projects, and is a supervisor of two funded doctoral projects with a US focus, with a third project due to begin in September 2025. Shaun  welcomes proposals from prospective postgraduate students with interests in the following: 

• U.S. cultural and social history
• Slavery and antislavery
• U.S. print culture and enslaved literature

Office: 1.H025 (Humanities Building, 7 Woodland Road)

Email: shaun.wallace@bristol.ac.uk