Episode #10: Teach the Student, Not the Curriculum

In this episode, I catch up with one of my favorite professors from back in the day, Dr. Hollis Robbins. We discuss why it's important for teachers to connect with their students, challenges she faced throughout her career, politics, and her book, 'Forms of Contention: Influence and the African American Sonnet Tradition.' Dr. Hollis Robbins currently serves as Dean of Humanities at the University of Utah. Dean Robbins is a noted scholar of nineteenth-century American and African American literature, film, and poetry. Her newest book, Forms of Contention: Influence and the African American Sonnet Tradition (University of Georgia Press, 2020), explores the interrelationship of influence, double consciousness, canon-formation, and poetic form. Dean Robbins has previously edited or co-edited five books, including the Penguin Portable Nineteenth Century African American Women Writers, co-edited with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., which was named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2017. Dean Robbins holds a Ph.D. in English from Princeton University (2003); an M.A. in English from the University of Colorado, Boulder (1998); an M.P.P. from Harvard University (1990); and a B.A. from Johns Hopkins University (1983).