Hollis Robbins

Hollis Robbins is dean of humanities at the University of Utah. Her most recent book is Forms of Contention: Influence and the African American Sonnet Tradition (2020). Her previous book, The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers (Penguin, 2017), co-edited with Henry Louis Gates Jr., was named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2017. She can be followed on Twitter at @Anecdotal.

Articles

Poetry, Biography, and the Unknowable: On Two New Books About Phillis Wheatley
Hollis Robbins reviews Vincent Carretta’s “Phillis Wheatley Peters: Biography of a Genius in Bondage” and David Waldstreicher’s “The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence.”
Hollis RobbinsJul 30, 2023
Examining Phillis Wheatley
Hollis Robbins examines the legend of Phillis Wheatley, the first African American published poet.
Hollis RobbinsDec 19, 2022
- Biography & Autobiography
- Poetry
Interconnected Lives: On Greg Sarris’s “Watermelon Nights”
A new reprint of a classic work of contemporary Native American fiction.
Hollis RobbinsAug 22, 2021
- Fiction
Reflections on the Mirror Stage
Hollis Robbins reflects on the uses of the college admissions essay, and what it says about young applicants.
Hollis RobbinsApr 27, 2021
Profits of Order
Hollis Robbins looks at the history of "Robert's Rules" and the family of its creator.
Hollis RobbinsSep 30, 2019
Why Not a Founder’s Opera?
Hollis Robbins explores the failure of Adams and Sellers' gold rush opera "Girls of the Gold West" and wonders when tech entrepreneurs will be the subjects of their own operas.
Hollis RobbinsApr 28, 2019
A Reactionary Renaming: Stanford and English Language Politics
Stanford's recent decision to remove references of Spanish missionary Junipero Serra ignores the Hispanic legacy in United States history.
Hollis RobbinsOct 17, 2018
Dancing with Chains
Hollis Robbins discusses Chinese scholarship of American literature.
Hollis RobbinsApr 3, 2018