Joel Cabrita

Joel Cabrita is a historian of modern Southern Africa who focuses on Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) and South Africa. She is Professor of African History based in both the Department of History and the Department of African and African American Studies.
Cabrita most recent book is Written Out: The Silencing of Regina Gelana Twala (Ohio and Wits University Presses, 2023) and it tells the story of how Twala - an important South African writer and activist - was written out of history by a range of exclusionary forces. Written Out was awarded the 2024 Best Book Prize from the South African National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences as well as is shortlisted for the African Studies Association UK 2024 Best Book Prize. Cabrita is currently digitizing Twala's letters and photographic collection; soon to be published on the Stanford Digital Repository as an online exhibition.
Cabrita's previous work has focused on religion in Southern Africa, including the The People’s Zion: Southern Africa, the United States and a Transatlantic Faith-Healing Movement, Harvard University Press, 2018) investigates the convergence of evangelical piety, transnational networks and the rise of industrialized societies in both Southern Africa and North America. The People's Zion was awarded the American Society of Church History's Albert C Outler Prize for 2019. She is also the co-editor of a volume examining the global dimensions of Christian practice, advocating for a shift away from Western Christianity to the lateral connections connecting southern hemisphere religious practitioners (Relocating World Christianity, Brill, 2017). Read more about her work here.
Cabrita did her PhD at the University of Cambridge and was subsequently a Junior Research Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. Before moving to Stanford, she held permanent posts at SOAS (University of London) and the University of Cambridge. Her research has been recognized by two major early-career research prizes, the British Arts and Humanities Early Career Research Fellowship (2015) and the Philip Leverhulme Prize (2017).