Aileen Robinson

Bio

Dr. Robinson received an Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre and Drama from Northwestern University and her A.B. in Literature from Harvard University. She conducted archival research in Britain and the United States supported through an SSRC International Dissertation Fellowship and an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant. She served as a Mellon Fellow in the Scholars in the Humanities program for 2016-2018 at Stanford University.

Academic Appointments

• Assistant Professor, Theater and Performance Studies

Administrative Appointments

• The Annenberg Faculty Fellow, School of the Humanities and Sciences (2020 - 2022)
• Faculty Fellow, AAAS (2020 - 2023)

Program Affiliations

• Science, Technology and Society

Current Research and Scholarly Interests

Aileen K. Robinson is a historian of performance and technology with specializations in 18th and 19th century British theatre and Black cultural performances. Working across the history of science, technology, and theatre, Robinson explores how systems of knowledge, connected to the body and the object, overlapped to produce practices of research, dissemination, and valuation.

Robinson's current book manuscript explores intersections between technological, scientific, and theatrical knowledge in early nineteenth-century science museums. She investigates how theatrical performances and magic shows drew upon technological innovations and formed unique methods for disseminating scientific knowledge. She teaches across the history of science and performance, magic and technology, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century stagecraft, and 19th and 20th-century Black artistic production.