Robin Brooks

On Research Leave until Spring 2026

Robin Brooks is a cultural and literary analyst who explores matters concerning Black communities in the United States and the wider African Diaspora. Her research stands at the intersection of the humanities and social sciences.

Her first book manuscript is Class Interruptions: Inequality and Division in African Diasporic Women’s Fiction (UNC Press), and it examines how writers use literary portrayals of class to critique inequalities and divisions in the U.S. and Caribbean. Her second book tentatively titled Death Proximity: Grief and Emotional Wellness Stories in Black Communities will examine Black contemporary life writing and Black death.

She also has publications on writers and literature of the African Diaspora appearing in a number of academic journals, and her record of scholarship and teaching covers topics in contemporary cultural and literary studies as well as working-class studies, death studies, Black feminist theory, postcolonial studies, health humanities, digital humanities, higher education management, and education policy. She is the recipient of numerous awards, grants, and fellowships, and her research has been supported by the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Dr. Brooks frequently delivers presentations on her work at national and international conferences in addition to organizing and chairing several conference panels.

Additionally, she is a proud native of Miami, Florida. After receiving the International Baccalaureate Diploma from North Miami Senior High School, she attended Florida State University on a Florida Bright Futures Scholarship where she graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa a year early with a BA in English in 2003. Before joining the University of Pittsburgh, she was a Diversity Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of San Diego and a Provost’s Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of South Florida. For the 2019-2020 academic year, she was hosted as a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Emory University.