Associate Professor Joel Cabrita

Joel Cabrita is Associate Professor of African History and (by courtesy) of Religious Studies. She is also the Susan Ford Dorsey Director of the Center for African Studies. She is the author of three books and numerous articles on religion, gender, and the politics of knowledge production in Africa. Her most recent book - Written Out: The Silencing of Regina Gelana Twala - tells the story of a forgotten South African writer, exploring the processes by which certain figures achieve fame and others are erased and ignored. Cabrita is currently collaborating with the South African photographer, Sabelo Mlangeni, who will be a visitor at Stanford in 2023- 2024 and whose work will be exhibited on campus. Cabrita's teaching at Stanford includes courses on the history of publishing in Africa, the rise of radical religious movements on the continent, and the intersection between gender and biographical practices.