Dr Ayesha Omar

Ayesha Omar is a British Academy International Fellow (2023) at the Department of Politics and International Studies (SOAS) and a Senior Lecturer in political theory in the Department of Political Studies (Wits). Whilst at SOAS she will be undertaking a 3-year research project on the Liberal Engagements of Black Intellectual History in South Africa. The project explores texts and archives in the UK and South Africa to disclose how liberalism was considered normatively, descriptively, and evaluatively as black intellectuals responded to the context of settler colonialism and Apartheid. Ayesha’s research will be used in the development of an extensive book project for Cambridge University Press.

Ayesha has published various articles and book chapters in comparative political theory and intellectual history of South Africa. She has recently completed a monograph for Cambridge University, is co-editor on the two-volume series, the Cambridge History of African Political Thought, and the recently published volume Decolonisation: Revolution and Evolution with David Boucher (Wits University Press, 2023).