THE COLLEGE LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION
2024 KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Zandria F. Robinson, PhD

Zandria F. Robinson, PhD is Janice and Arthur’s daughter. She is a native Memphian, writer, and cultural critic working at the intersections of race, gender, popular culture, and the U.S. South. She earned the Bachelor of Arts in Literature and African and African American Studies and the Master of Arts in Sociology from the University of Memphis and the PhD in Sociology from Northwestern University. Robinson’s first book, This Ain’t Chicago: Race, Class, and Regional Identity in the Post-Soul South won the Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Outstanding Book Award from the Division of Racial and Ethnic Minorities of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Her second monograph, Chocolate Cities: The Black Map of American Life, co-authored with Marcus Anthony Hunter, won the Robert E. Park Book Award from the Community and Urban Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association. She is a past president and long-time executive committee member of the Association of Black Sociologists. Her 2016 memoir essay, “Listening for the Country,” published by Oxford American,was nominated for the National Magazine Award for Essay. Her writing on race, place, and music, and her profiles of the living and dead, can be found inseveral places, including Rolling Stone, Scalawag, Believer, Oxford American, The New York Times Magazine, and Glamour.