Sarah Nuttall

Sarah Nuttall is a Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies and Director of the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She has held senior research and teaching roles since 2000, including visiting professorships at Yale, Duke, Salzburg, and Berkeley. Her work bridges post-apartheid South Africa, urban theory, and African aesthetics.

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree, University of Natal
• Master’s degree, University of Cape Town
• Rhodes Scholarship PhD, Oxford University (1994)

Research Interests:

• Post-apartheid societal dynamics and cultural entanglement
• Urban metamorphosis in Johannesburg
• Comparative postcolonial aesthetics across Africa and diasporas
• Anthropocene theory intersecting with African political ecologies

Awards:

• Oppenheimer Fellow, Harvard University (2016)

Key Contributions:

• Edited landmark texts on postcolonial space (Text, Theory, Space), African aesthetics (Beautiful/Ugly), and Johannesburg urbanism (Johannesburg – The Elusive Metropolis)
• Co-founded interdisciplinary research initiatives at WISER
• Leading scholar on memory politics and cultural transformation in South Africa

Labs/Teams: Directs the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER), a hub for critical social research in Southern Africa.