Brenna earned a BA (Hons.) in South Asian Studies and History from
the University of Toronto in 1996, going on to obtain her LLB from UBC
in 1999. After completing her law degree, Brenna clerked with the
Honourable Madam Justice Ryan in the BC Court of Appeal, completing her
articles with Arvay Finlay in Victoria. She began her PhD at the
Birkbeck School of Law, University of London in 2001, the recipient of
numerous graduate scholarships, and graduated in 2007.
Prior to
joining Allard Law, Brenna was a Reader in Law and Critical Theory
at SOAS, University of London, where she had been on faculty since 2013.
Prior to her appointment at SOAS, she held faculty positions at the
Queen Mary School of Law, Kent Law School and the University of Reading
Law School. She has also held visiting appointments at L’École des
hautes études en science sociales (Paris) and the Stellenbosch
University Faculty of Law (South Africa).
Brenna’s research and
teaching lie within the fields of property studies and legal theory,
spanning the disciplines of property law, critical theory, colonial
history and critical race feminism. Her book
Colonial Lives of Property: Law Land and Racial Regimes of Ownership was
published in 2018 with Duke University Press. She has published widely
in various leading academic journals. She is regularly invited to
deliver plenary and keynote addresses at academic venues around the
globe, and in a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary settings.
