Patricia Hill Collins
From Freepedia
Patricia Hill Collins, (born May 1, 1948-) is a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park and former head of the Department of African American Studies at the University of Cincinnati. She came to national attention for her book Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment originally published in 1990. Collins is widely regarded as one of America's leading black feminists.
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Early Career
She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1948. After obtaining her bachelor's degree from Brandeis University in 1969, she started working as a teacher at Harvard University in 1970. Between 1973 and 1976, she was a curriculum specialist at St Joseph Community School. She was Director of the African American Center at Tufts University between 1976 and 1980 before completing her doctorate at Brandeis in 1984. She married Roger L. Collins and has one daughter. In 1986, her first book Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought was published.
Sociology Professor and Published Author
Collins became an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati in 1987. In 1990, she published Black Feminist Thought which used a wide range of sources including fiction, poetry, music and oral history to look at black feminist thought by such figures as Angela Davis, Alice Walker and Audre Lorde. Collins made three central claims in this book namely that:
- Oppressions are interconnected;
- Black women have created world views out of a need for self-definition; and
- Black women have often been restricted because of external definitions of who they are and have often internalized these criticisms.
Collins was the recipient of the C. Wright Mills Award in 1990. She was awarded the Jesse Barnard Award in 1993 for Black Feminist Thought. She was appointed as Professor of African American Studies at the University of Cincinatti in 1993. The book was gradually added to the reading lists of gender studies courses throughout the US.
The University of Cincinnati named Collins the Charles Phelps Taft Professor of Sociology in 1996. She received Emeritus status in the Spring of 2005 and became professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Collins published a third book Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice in 1998. Fighting Words focused against discrimination against women in black communities and the role of black women as "outsiders within". She published Black Sexual Politics in 2004 arguing that racism and sexism were intertwined.
Selected bibliography
- From Black Power to Hip Hop: Racism, Nationalism, and Feminism, Forthcoming
- Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism, ISBN 0415930995, 2005
- Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice, ISBN 0816623775, 1998
- Race, Class and Gender: An Anthology, ISBN 0534528791, co-edited w/ Margaret Andersen, 1995
- Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment, ISBN 0415924847, 1990
- Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought Social Problems, 1986
References
External References
- University of Cincinnati faculty page
- Article on Fighting Words
- University of Texas summary of Collins contributions
Written References
- Gale Group, Contemporary Authors Online 2001 article on Patricia Hill Collins published on Biography Resource Centre 2005
- Feminist Authors St James Press 1996 article on Patricia Hill Collins Reproduced on Biography Resource Centre 2005
- "Patricia Hill Collins" World of Sociology 2 volumes Gale Group 2001 Reproduced on Biography Resource Centre 2005
- "Patricia Hill Collins" Directory of American Scholars 10th Edition Gale Group 2001
- "Dr Patricia Hill Collins Who's Who Among African-Americans 18th Edition Gale Group 2005
- Tonya Bolden, "Review of Black Feminist Thought" in Black Enterprise July 1992 v22 n12 page 12(1)
- Tamala M Edwards, "The F Word", Essence May 1999 volume 30 issue 1 page 90
- Katherine C. Adams review of Black Sexual Politics Library Journal April 1 2004 v129 i6 page 111
