Dr Athambile Masola received her PhD from Rhodes University. Her dissertation was an exploration of black women’s life writing with a particular focus on Noni Jabavu and Sisonke Msimang’s memoirs. Her primary research focuses on black women’s life writing and historiography. Her research is also informed by the early 20th century newspaper archive in South Africa (particularly written in isiXhosa). She is primarily concerned with the nature of erasure and the ways in which multiple forms of reading a variety of texts can inform archival research.

Research Interests and Areas of Supervision:

  • Black women’s historiography
  • Early 20th century Literary and Intellectual Histories
  • African language newspaper archive and public sphere

Select Publications:

  • Creative Outputs:
    • Ilifa, Uhlanga Press, 2021 (poetry collection)
    • Kauve: The Women’s March of 1956 to Pretoria, 64th Anniversary, compiled and edited with Boitumelo Mofokeng and Mothobi Mutloatse. Skotaville Publishers, 2021.
    • Imbokodo: Women Who Shape Us (book series co-written with Xolisa Guzula), Jacana Media, 2022
    • Noni Jabavu: A Stranger at Home (with Makhosazana Xaba), Tafelberg, 2023
    • Together Apart: The Story of Living in Apartheid (co-written with Xolisa Guzula), Jacana Media, 2025
  • Co-edited volume: Inyathi Ibuzwa Kwabaphambili: - Theorising South African Women's Intellectual Legacies, edited with Babalwa Magoqwana and Siphokazi Magadla, published by Mandela University Press, 2025
  • “An African in the World: Noni Jabavu’s Memoirs as World Literature” in Life Writing as World Literature, edited by Helga Lenart-Cheng and Iona Luca. Bllomsbury Publishing, 2025
  • “Intuiting the archive: when the women are unidentified” in The Oxford Handbook of South African History, edited by Daniel Magaziner, Oxford University Press, 2025
  • “Exploring paratextual framings of the isiXhosa volumes in the African Treasury Series” (with Sanele KaNtshingana), in A Century of Publishing: Southern Knowledge Making at Wits University Press, edited by Isabel Hofmeyr and Sarah Nuttall. Wits University Press, 2024
  • “The Hegemonic Press in Early Twentieth Century South Africa (with Prof Corinne Sandwith), in Edinburgh Companion to the British Colonial Periodical, edited by David Finkelstein, David Johnson, Caroline Davis.  Edinburgh University Press, 2024
  • “Invoking Names: Finding black women’s lost narratives in the classroom”. In Pande A., Chaturvedi, R., Daya, S. (eds) Epistemic Justice and the postcolonial university. Wits University Press 2023
  • “A footnote and a pioneer: Noni Jabavu’s legacy”. In Foundational African Writers: Peter Abrahams, Noni Jabavu, Sibusiso Nyembezi and Eskia Mphahlele. Edited by Bhekizizwe Peterson, Khwezi Mkhize, Makhosazana Xaba. Wits University Press 2022
  • “African Women’s Letters as Intellectual History and Decolonial Knowledge Production”. In: Yacob-Haliso O., Falola T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of African Women's Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77030-7_163-1(https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-77030-7_163-1)
  • “Transformation in the trade publishing sector in South Africa” in Arts, Development and Democracy Project. Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection, edited by I.J. Mhlambi and S. Ngidi (Febuary 2021)
  • The Politics of the 1920s Black Press: Charlotte Maxeke and Nontsizi Mgqwetho’s Critique of Congress, International Journal of African Renaissance Studies - Multi-, Inter- and Transdisciplinarity (Issue 2), Volume 13, 2018 (Online January 2019).
  • “Bantu women on the move”: Black women and the politics of mobility in The Bantu World, Historia, May 2018.
  • “What Is a Place?”: Exploring Place and Displacement in Lauretta Ngcobo’s Novel Cross of Gold, co-authored with Makhosazana Xaba, Scrutiny2: Issues in English Studies in Southern Africa, Volume 22, September 2017.