Sarah Nuttall

{{Infobox academic | name = Sarah Nuttall | region = | period = | occupation = Professor at University of the Witwatersrand | title = | boards =  | known_for = | spouse = Achille Mbembe | children = | signature = | signature_alt = | signature_size = | era = | discipline = Literary studies<br />Cultural studies | sub_discipline = | movement =  | religion =  | denomination =  | education = University of Natal<br />University of Cape Town | alma_mater = University of Oxford <small>(DPhil)</small> | doctoral_advisor = Kate Flint | doctoral_students = | notable_students = | main_interests = Visual culture and aesthetics, memory, urban theory, autobiography | workplaces = Stellenbosch University, University of the Witwatersrand | notable_ideas = | influences = | awards = Rhodes Scholarship | website = | footnotes = | birth_place = Durban, South Africa }}

'''Sarah Nuttall''' is a South African academic and cultural critic who is professor of literary and cultural studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. She was director of the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research from 2013 to 2022. She has published widely about post-apartheid South Africa, including on topics in literary theory, cultural theory, urban theory, and aesthetics.

== Academic background ==

Born in Durban, Nuttall is the daughter of Jolyon Nuttall, a journalist and newspaper manager; his father, in turn, was Neville Nuttall, a columnist, teacher, and close friend of Alan Paton's.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-01-04 |title='I was there': Essays that map a life |url=https://mg.co.za/article/2019-01-04-00-i-was-there-essays-that-map-a-life/ |access-date=2023-05-27 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=2013-06-14 |title=Wits all the Wiser for its vital literary couple |url=https://mg.co.za/article/2013-06-14-wits-all-the-wiser-for-its-vital-literary-couple/ |access-date=2023-05-27 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}}</ref>

Nuttall completed a bachelor's degree at the University of Natal and a master's degree at the University of Cape Town.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Sarah Nuttall |url=https://egs.edu/biography/sarah-nuttall/ |access-date=2023-05-27 |website=The European Graduate School |language=en-US}}</ref> Come of age at the height of apartheid, she was involved in anti-apartheid student politics while at university.<ref name=":0" /> In 1994,<ref name=":1" /> she completed her PhD at University of Oxford, where was supervised by Kate Flint, mentored by Liz Gunner, and funded by a Rhodes Scholarship.<ref name=":0" />

== Academic positions == Between 1997 and 2001, Nuttall was a lecturer in the English department at Stellenbosch University.<ref name=":1" /> In 2001, she moved to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) to join the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) as a senior researcher, a position she held until 2010.<ref name=":1" /> During this period, in 2003, the ''Mail & Guardian'' named Nuttall as one of five academics expected to "emerge as key figures in our public life over the next 10 years", in Nuttall's case as a "literature specialist... pushing the boundaries of social and cultural analysis".<ref>{{Cite web |date=2003-12-20 |title=Climbing to the top of the greasy pole |url=https://mg.co.za/article/2003-12-20-climbing-to-the-top-of-greasy-pole/ |access-date=2023-05-27 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}}</ref>

In 2011, Nuttall left Wits and WiSER to return, briefly, to Stellenbosch; she was appointed director of WiSER in early 2013.<ref name=":0" /> She said that at WiSER she would attempt to "desegregate the conversations, bringing in people around the table and making sure the conversations are as wide as possible".<ref name=":0" /> She served two terms as WiSER director, leaving the office at the and 2022.<ref>{{Cite web |date=1 January 2023 |title=Sarah Nuttall Finishes her Second Term as WiSER Director |url=https://wiser.wits.ac.za/event/sarah-nuttall-finishes-her-second-term-wiser-director |access-date=2023-05-27 |website=Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research}}</ref> She retained her research position at the institute and remained a professor of literary and cultural studies at Wits.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Sarah Nuttall |url=https://wiser.wits.ac.za/people/sarah-nuttall |access-date=2023-05-27 |website=Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research |language=en}}</ref> She also has an appointment at the European Graduate School<ref name=":1" /> and is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Members |url=https://www.assaf.org.za/members-directory/ |access-date=2023-05-27 |website=ASSAf |language=en-US}}</ref>

== Scholarship and publications == Nuttall's 2009 monograph, ''Entanglement: Literary and Cultural Reflections on Post-apartheid'', is a collection of essays about post-apartheid South Africa, loosely connected by the theme of "entanglement", which Nuttall defined as "a critical sub-terrain of latent potential in the post-apartheid context".<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=Nuttall urges an embrace of the quickly shifting surfaces |url=http://www.apc.uct.ac.za/news/nuttall-urges-embrace-quickly-shifting-surfaces |access-date=2023-05-27 |website=Archive & Public Culture – University of Cape Town |language=en}}</ref> Describing the post-apartheid moment as a "world of surfaces", Nuttall argued that articulating and interpreting that moment required horizontal rather than symptomatic readings, renewed interested in literalism, eschewing the "apartheid optic", and giving texts "surfaces" akin to visual art.<ref name=":2" />

Nuttall edited ''Beautiful Ugly: African and Diaspora Aesthetics'' (2007), a collection of essays on African aesthetics,<ref>{{Cite web |date=2008-01-22 |title=Eating Africa: politics of the stomach |url=https://mg.co.za/article/2008-01-22-eating-africa-politics-of-the-stomach/ |access-date=2023-05-27 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}}</ref> which won the 2007 Arnold Rubin Outstanding Publication Award.<ref>{{Cite web |date=11 May 2007 |title=The Arts Council of the African Studies Association 14th Triennial Symposium |url=https://artthrob.co.za/07may/news/acasa.html |access-date=2023-05-27 |website=Artthrob}}</ref> She has also co-edited several collections, including ''Negotiating the Past: The Making of Memory in South Africa'' (1998) with Carli Coetzee, about the production of memory in post-apartheid South Africa;<ref>{{Cite web |date=1998-04-03 |title=Many versions of the past |url=https://mg.co.za/article/1998-04-03-many-versions-of-the-past/ |access-date=2023-05-27 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}}</ref> and, with Liz McGregor, ''At Risk'' (2007) and ''Load Shedding'' (2009), two collections of essays about contemporary life in South Africa.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Salafranca |first=Arja |date=2 July 2009 |title=Load Shedding illuminates South Africans' lives through shared experiences |url=https://www.litnet.co.za/i-load-shedding-i-illuminates-south-africans-lives-through-share/ |access-date=2023-05-27 |website=LitNet}}</ref> With her husband, Achille Mbembe, she has written about Johannesburg as an Afropolis,<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Mbembe |first1=Achille |last2=Nuttall |first2=Sarah |date=2004-09-01 |title=Writing the World from an African Metropolis |journal=Public Culture |volume=16 |issue=3 |pages=347–372 |doi=10.1215/08992363-16-3-347 |issn=0899-2363|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Nuttall |first1=Sarah |last2=Mbembe |first2=Achille |date=2007 |title=Afropolis: From Johannesburg |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/pmla/article/abs/afropolis-from-johannesburg/DFA14DAE4FE19439E6DDF00F8CEAF1D9 |journal=PMLA |language=en |volume=122 |issue=1 |pages=281–288 |doi=10.1632/pmla.2007.122.1.281 |s2cid=162359995 |issn=0030-8129|url-access=subscription }}</ref> and Nuttall and Mbembe co-edited ''Johannesburg: The Elusive Metropolis'' (2008), an influential book about the city.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Devarenne |first=Nicole |date=2010 |title=Johannesburg: The Elusive Metropolis (review) |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/373096 |journal=Modernism/Modernity |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=258–260 |doi=10.1353/mod.0.0175 |s2cid=144994984 |issn=1080-6601|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

== Personal life == Nuttall and Mbembe met in Nairobi in 1997; met again when Nuttall was at Stellenbosch, while Mbembe was in Cape Town writing ''On the Postcolony''; and worked together at WiSER. They live in Johannesburg and have two children.<ref name=":0" />

== References == {{Reflist}}

== External links == * {{Google Scholar id|KxVuBxUAAAAJ}} * [https://wiser.wits.ac.za/people/sarah-nuttall Sarah Nuttall] at Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research * [https://mg.co.za/article/2013-04-05-00-the-mortality-of-nelson-mandela/ "The mortality of Nelson Mandela"] in the ''Mail & Guardian'' (2013)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nuttall, Sarah}} Category:Living people Category:People from Durban Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:University of Natal alumni Category:University of Cape Town alumni Category:Alumni of the University of Oxford Category:Academic staff of Stellenbosch University Category:Academic staff of the University of the Witwatersrand Category:South African Rhodes Scholars Category:South African literary critics Category:Literary theorists Category:21st-century South African women writers Category:21st-century South African writers Category:Members of the Academy of Science of South Africa

Sarah Nuttall

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