Prof Natasha Erlank

Professor
Name: Natasha Erlank
Location: A-Ring 246 Auckland Park Kingsway Campus
Department of Historical Studies  Staff Members

Contact Details:
Tel: 011 559 3609

Email: nerlank@uj.ac.za

About Prof Natasha Erlank

I trained as a historian, doing my undergraduate, honours and master degrees at the University of Cape Town (UCT). My doctorate was completed at Cambridge University.

My research interests lie principally in intellectual history and the history of gender relations in Africa, within the broader context of colonialism (which operates both as a historical framing and a theoretical undergirding. My current project concerns the history of reproductive health in Africa between the 1940s and the 1990s.  This work takes a comparative look at how birth control policies were rolled out across a range of different and newly independent nation states, and about the ways in which Africans resisted and adopted the agendas of foreign donor agencies in this regard. This is a book monograph focused project.

My current, major project concerns the history of reproductive health in Africa between the 1940s and the 1990s.  This work takes a comparative look at how birth control policies were rolled out across a range of different and newly independent nation states, and about the ways in which Africans resisted and adopted the agendas of foreign donor agencies in this regard. This is a book monograph focused project.

RECENT WRITING

Books

Erlank, N. Convening the African Family: Christianity, Gender,  and Tradition in Early 20th Century South Africa. New African Histories. Ohio University Press and Wits Press, 2022.

Chapters in Books, Journal Articles, Popular Writing

Erlank, N., ‘Experiences and Emotions: Pregnancy and Childbirth in Africa after 1945”, in The Cultural History of Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Age of Globalization, edited by Isabel Cordova (Bloomsbury). Expected 2026.

Erlank, N., ‘The Hidden Matters of the Black People’: John Henderson Soga and The South-Eastern Bantu, Publishing from the South: A Century of Wits University Press edited by Sarah Nuttall and Isabel Hofmeyr (Wits Press, 2024).

Erlank, N and Susanne Klausen, ‘Researching African Histories of Sexuality: In praise of the erotic, Journal of the History of Sexuality 32.1 (2023).

Erlank, Natasha, and University of Johannesburg. 2023. “Natasha Erlank.” The Conversation. March 7. https://theconversation.com/profiles/natasha-erlank-1421374.

Erlank, N. The History of the Soga Family, Race, and Identity in South Africa in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. OUP. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.776.

Erlank, N. ‘Umteteli Wa Bantu and the Constitution of Social Publics in the 1920s and 1930s’, Social Dynamics 45:1 (2019) 75-102.