Faculty

W. Frank Robinson
Assistant Professor of History
Associate Director, Center for Latin American Studies

PhD, Auburn University, 1999

Colonial and modern Latin America; history of Central America and the Caribbean; twentieth century political and social movements; Diaspora communities

Telephone: 615-343-1935
Email: william.f.robinson@vanderbilt.edu
Office Hours: summer - no office hours
Office: 237 Buttrick Hall

W. Frank Robinson is a historian of Latin America and the Caribbean with interests in twentieth century political and social movements, nationalism and populism, and Caribbean Diaspora communities. He completed his undergraduate studies at the Johns Hopkins University, with a primary focus on the history of the Caribbean. At the graduate level at the University of Florida (M.A.) and at Auburn University (Ph.D.), he specialized in African Area Studies and Latin American history. Professor Robinson teaches courses in the Atlantic World and Latin American and Caribbean history that cover both the colonial and national periods including the history of the Iberian Atlantic empires, modern Latin America, Central America, and the contemporary Caribbean.

Professor Robinson has lived and researched for extended periods in Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. He is a contributing author to Populism in Latin America (Alabama, 1999) and is currently completing a manuscript that examines twentieth century Panamanian political history. Professor Robinson has been elected president of the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies and will hold this position from 2013-1014. He has served as the principal organizer for the SECOLAS 60th annual conference in Panama City, Panama that will be held March 6-10, 2013. Professor Robinson was selected to participate in the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute titled “Slaves, Soldiers, Rebels: Currents of Black Resistance in the Tropical Atlantic, 1760-1888” at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Grants and fellowships from the IIE Fulbright Program, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Defense Education Act Title VI have helped fund his studies, research, and writing.

As the Associate Director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Vanderbilt University, Professor Robinson oversees the undergraduate and graduate programs. He teaches multidisciplinary introductions to Latin American and Brazilian Studies, and an interdisciplinary research methods course for majors and graduate students.