[2] In 1994,[3] she completed her PhD at University of Oxford, where was supervised by Kate Flint, mentored by Liz Gunner, and funded by a Rhodes Scholarship.
[3] During this period, in 2003, the Mail & Guardian named Nuttall as one of five academics expected to "emerge as key figures in our public life over the next 10 years", in Nuttall's case as a "literature specialist... pushing the boundaries of social and cultural analysis".
[5] She retained her research position at the institute and remained a professor of literary and cultural studies at Wits.
[3][6] She also has an appointment at the European Graduate School[3] and is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa.
[8] Describing the post-apartheid moment as a "world of surfaces", Nuttall argued that articulating and interpreting that moment required horizontal rather than symptomatic readings, renewed interested in literalism, eschewing the "apartheid optic", and giving texts "surfaces" akin to visual art.