
Forms of Contention: The African American Sonnet Tradition
Delta Delta Delta Fellowship, 2017–18
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
- 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.
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