Professor Isabel Hofmeyr

Isabel Hofmeyr is Professor Emeritus at the University of the Witwatersrand and was global distinguished professor at New York University from 2013 to 2022. Until her retirement, she spent her career in the Department of African Literature at Wits. She has worked extensively on print culture and book history and has combined these with environmental and oceanic themes. From 2018 to 2023, she co-directed a project, Oceanic Humanities for the Global South, with partners from Mozambique, India, Jamaica and Barbados.

She is regarded as a leading scholar in the field of Indian Ocean studies. While she continued this focus, her interest has shifted over the last decade in response to climate change and rising sea levels, resulting in the exploration of print culture in relation to the new oceanic studies and the formulation of the concept of “hydrocolonialism”. This culminated in her most recent book, Dockside Reading: Hydrocolonialism and the Custom House (2022).

Over her career, she has produced four single-authored monographs, nine co-edited volumes, 31 co-edited special issues, and more than a 100 scholarly articles and chapters in books. She has successfully supervised 36 Master’s and 34 PhD graduates.