Diana Wylie

Diana Wylie is currently active in the field of public history: serving as curator at the Tangier American Legation Museum and a guide to the city of Boston. Her current research focuses on urban history with special reference to historic preservation and public space. She  has published four books on southern and North African history: A Little God, The Twilight of Patriarchy in a Southern African Chiefdom (1990); Starving on a Full Stomach: Hunger and the Triumph of Cultural Racism in Modern South Africa (2001; winner of Herskovits Prize 2002); Art + Revolution, The Life and Death of Thami Mnyele, South African Artist (2008); Enchantment: Pictures from the Tangier American Legation Museum (2010; French translation 2015; revised and expanded second edition 2025), as well as articles mainly on South and North African history. Winner in 2002 of the Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching, she held the National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Teaching Professorship for the Core Curriculum (2008-11) and then served (2016-17) as director of the Core Curriculum.