• Home
  • Who We Are
    • Welcome from the Director
    • Staff of the Center
    • Trustees of the Center
  • Contact Us
  • Trustees Portal
National Humanities Center
  • Scholarly Programs
        • Become a Fellow

          • Fellowship Information for International Applicants
          • The ACLS Burkhardt Fellowship
        • Fellows and Their Projects, 2017–2018

        • Fellows of the Center, 1978–2017

          • Books by Fellows
          • Statistical Overview
        • The Library

  • Education Programs
        • Lessons

        • Webinars

        • Primary Sources

        • TeacherServe

        • Teacher Advisory Council

          • Teacher Advisory Council 2018–19
        • Humanities in Class: A Guide to Thinking and Learning in the Humanities

        • TransPacific Teacher Scholars Program

        • Contested Territory: America’s Role in Southeast Asia, 1945–75

        • Recent Projects

          • Creating and Performing Stories in the Humanities and Sciences
          • Humanities in Class: Critical Inquiry and Classroom Practice in the Information Age
          • Mapping the American Experience, November 2017
          • Teacher of the Year, Part 2: Documentary Screening and Live Teacher Discussion
          • AN OUTRAGE: Teaching about the History of Lynching in the American South
          • Teacher of the Year: Virtual Screening and Discussion
          • Summer Institute on Objects, Places and the Digital Humanities, 2017–18
          • Triangle University Internship Program, May 2017
          • Mapping the American Experience, August & October, 2016
          • Reading Our Stories: Exploring the Veteran’s Experience through Literature
          • NHC Summer Institute in Digital Textual Studies, 2015–16
  • Humanities Moments
  • News and Events
        • Recent News

        • Coming Events

        • Podcasts

        • Videos

        • Become a Friend of the Center

  • Support the Humanities
  • Scholarly Programs
    • Become a Fellow
      • Fellowship Information for International Applicants
      • The ACLS Burkhardt Fellowship
    • Fellows and Their Projects, 2017–2018
    • Fellows of the Center, 1978–2017
      • Books by Fellows
      • Statistical Overview
    • The Library
  • Education Programs
    • Lessons
    • Webinars
    • Primary Sources
    • TeacherServe
    • Teacher Advisory Council
      • Teacher Advisory Council 2018–19
    • Humanities in Class: A Guide to Thinking and Learning in the Humanities
    • TransPacific Teacher Scholars Program
    • Contested Territory: America’s Role in Southeast Asia, 1945–75
    • Recent Projects
      • Creating and Performing Stories in the Humanities and Sciences
      • Humanities in Class: Critical Inquiry and Classroom Practice in the Information Age
      • Mapping the American Experience, November 2017
      • Teacher of the Year, Part 2: Documentary Screening and Live Teacher Discussion
      • AN OUTRAGE: Teaching about the History of Lynching in the American South
      • Teacher of the Year: Virtual Screening and Discussion
      • Summer Institute on Objects, Places and the Digital Humanities, 2017–18
      • Triangle University Internship Program, May 2017
      • Mapping the American Experience, August & October, 2016
      • Reading Our Stories: Exploring the Veteran’s Experience through Literature
      • NHC Summer Institute in Digital Textual Studies, 2015–16
  • Humanities Moments
  • News and Events
    • Recent News
    • Coming Events
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
    • Become a Friend of the Center
  • Support the Humanities
National Humanities Center
  • Fellowships
        • Become a Fellow

          • Fellowship Information for International Applicants
          • The ACLS Burkhardt Fellowship
        • Fellows and Their Projects, 2017–2018

        • Fellows of the Center, 1978–2017

          • Books by Fellows
          • Statistical Overview
        • The Library

  • Education
        • Lessons

        • Webinars

        • Primary Sources

        • TeacherServe

        • Teacher Advisory Council

          • Teacher Advisory Council 2018–19
        • Humanities in Class: A Guide to Thinking and Learning in the Humanities

        • TransPacific Teacher Scholars Program

        • Contested Territory: America’s Role in Southeast Asia, 1945–75

        • Recent Projects

          • Creating and Performing Stories in the Humanities and Sciences
          • Humanities in Class: Critical Inquiry and Classroom Practice in the Information Age
          • Mapping the American Experience, November 2017
          • Teacher of the Year, Part 2: Documentary Screening and Live Teacher Discussion
          • AN OUTRAGE: Teaching about the History of Lynching in the American South
          • Teacher of the Year: Virtual Screening and Discussion
          • Summer Institute on Objects, Places and the Digital Humanities
          • Triangle University Internship Program, May 2017
          • Mapping the American Experience, August & October, 2016
          • Reading Our Stories: Exploring the Veteran’s Experience through Literature
          • NHC Summer Institute in Digital Textual Studies 2015–16
  • Humanities Moments
  • News and Events
        • Recent News

        • Coming Events

        • Podcasts

        • Videos

        • Become a Friend of the Center

  • Support Us

Hollis Robbins

Department of Liberal Arts, Peabody Institute
Department of Liberal Arts, Peabody InstituteJohns Hopkins University

Forms of Contention: The African American Sonnet Tradition

Delta Delta Delta Fellowship, 2017–18

  • Bio
  • News
  • Selected Publications
Hollis Robbins, PhD is a member of the Humanities faculty at the Peabody Institute, where she has taught since 2006, and was Director of the Center for Africana Studies from 2014–17. Her work focuses on the intersection of 19th-century American and African American literature and the discourses of law, bureaucracy, and the press. She was from 2003 to 2006 the director/managing editor of the Black Periodical Literature Project at Harvard’s DuBois Institute and was the Principal Investigator on the “Visualizing the History of the Black Press in the United States” National Endowment of Humanities Office of Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant. She is currently a Fellow at the National Humanities Center in Durham, NC.

Robbins has edited or co-edited five books on 19th-century African American literature; the latest is the Penguin Portable African American Women Writers (July 2017). Others include the Penguin Classics edition of Frances E.W. Harper’s 1892 novel Iola Leroy, or, Shadows Uplifted; The Annotated Uncle Tom’s Cabin, co-edited with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; In Search of Hannah Crafts, Essays on The Bondwoman’s Narrative, co-edited with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; and The Selected Works of William Wells Brown, co-edited with Paula Garrett.

Recent articles and book chapters include essays on Charles Chesnutt’s The House Behind the Cedars, on African American literature of the gold rush, and on the music of Django Unchained. Robbins holds a PhD in English from Princeton University, an MPP (Master in Public Policy) from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a BA in the Writing Seminars from Johns Hopkins.

  • “Dancing with Chains,” BLARB, April 3, 2018
  • NHC Podcast: “The Double-Voiced Form: The African American Sonnet Tradition,” March 21, 2018
  • “‘Black Panther,’ History and the Future,” Inside Higher Ed, February 27, 2018
  • NHC Humanities Moment: “Finding Freedom From the Familiar”
  • “Talking with Hollis Robbins,” Johns Hopkins Magazine, Winter 2017


Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers

  • Robbins, Hollis, and Henry Louis Gates, eds. The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers. New York: Penguin Books, 2017.
  • Robbins, Hollis. “Django Unchained: Repurposing Western Film Music.” Safundi 16, no. 3 (2015): 280–90.
  • Robbins, Hollis. “Fugitive Mail: The Deliverance of Henry ‘Box’ Brown and Antebellum Postal Politics.” American Studies 50, no. 1/2 (2009): 5–25.
  • Garrett, Paula, and Robbins, Hollis, eds. The Works of William Wells Brown: Using His “Strong, Manly Voice.” New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
  • Gates, Henry Louis, and Robbins, Hollis, eds. In Search of Hannah Crafts: Critical Essays on the Bondwoman’s Narrative. New York: Civitas Books, 2003.
  • Robbins, Hollis. “The Emperor’s New Critique.” New Literary History 34, no. 4 (2003): 659–75.


Contact Us

  Address: 7 T.W. Alexander Drive
P.O. Box 12256
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2256

  Phone: 919.549.0661

  Fax: 919.990.8535

  Email: info@nationalhumanitiescenter.org

Follow Us

Search Our Site