Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies and director of the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Before taking up this position in 2013, she was a senior researcher at the same institute from 2000 to 2010. Having received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Natal and a master’s degree from the University of Cape Town, Nuttall was awarded a Rhodes scholarship to obtain a doctorate at Oxford University, which she completed in 1994. Between 1997 and 2001, Nuttall was a lecturer at the English department of the University of Stellenbosch. She has held visiting professorships at Yale University, Duke University, as well as at the University of Salzburg, and was a visiting research fellow at the University of California, Berkeley.