Robin Bernstein

Robin Bernstein is the Dillon Professor of American History and Professor of African and African American Studies and of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University, where she has held faculty positions since 2004. She earned a Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University in 2004, an M.A. in American Studies from George Washington University in 1999, an M.A. in History, Theory, and Criticism of Theatre from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1995, and an A.B. in Creative Writing from Bryn Mawr College in 1991 with honors in the major. Her career at Harvard progressed from Assistant Director of Studies and Lecturer in the Program of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality (2004–2006) to Assistant Professor (2006–2010), Associate Professor (2011–2013), Professor (2013–2016), and Dillon Professor since 2016. Currently, she chairs Harvard's doctoral Program in American Studies (2022–2029, on leave 2025–2026) and previously chaired the Program of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality (2016–2020). She also serves as a faculty member in the undergraduate program in Theater, Dance, and Media and is an elected member and Councilor of the American Antiquarian Society.

A cultural historian specializing in U.S. racial formation from the nineteenth century to the present, Bernstein's research focuses on race, performance, childhood, and U.S. cultural history. Her major publications include Freeman’s Challenge: The Murder that Shook America’s Original Prison for Profit (University of Chicago Press, 2024), which received the 2025 PROSE Award for North American/U.S. History, the 2025 Montaigne Medal, the 2025 Massachusetts Book Award Nonfiction Honor, and Honorable Mention for the Merle Curti Award for Social History from the Organization of American Historians; Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights (New York University Press, 2011), winner of five awards including the Outstanding Book Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, the Grace Abbott Best Book Award from the Society for the History of Children and Youth, and the Book Award from the Children’s Literature Association; Cast Out: Queer Lives in Theatre (University of Michigan Press, 2006, editor); and Terrible, Terrible! A Jewish Folktale Retold (Kar-Ben Books, 1998). Her articles have appeared in journals such as PMLA, Social Text, American Literature, and African American Review, earning prizes like the 2021 William Riley Parker Prize and the 2009 Outstanding Article Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education for “Dances with Things: Material Culture and the Performance of Race.” Bernstein has received the Harvard College Professorship (2018–2023) for teaching excellence, the 2021 Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award, a Radcliffe Fellowship (2018–2019), and a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholars Fellowship (2021–2022). She co-edits the Performance and American Cultures book series for New York University Press and has served on editorial boards for Signs and Theatre Survey, contributing significantly to fields of American history, performance studies, and childhood studies through scholarship, public writing, and committee service at Harvard.

Professional Email: rbernst@fas.harvard.edu