معرفی
Robert Parkinson serves as Professor of History at Binghamton University, specializing in early American history with emphasis on the American Revolution, racial formation, and nation-building processes. His scholarly profile is defined by rigorous archival research and interdisciplinary analysis of colonial-era power structures.
His educational foundation includes a PhD from the University of Virginia and MA/BA degrees from the University of Tennessee. Parkinson's research program centers on how racial ideologies shaped revolutionary-era political discourse, as demonstrated in his monograph The Common Cause: Creating Nation and Race in the American Revolution (UNC Press, 2016), which examines intersections between enslavement, Native dispossession, and national identity formation.
Current work explores frontier violence through the microhistory The Heart of American Darkness, analyzing the 1774 murder of nine Indigenous people on the Ohio River's tributary and its lasting impact on early American political rhetoric. This project extends his investigation into how traumatic events catalyzed racialized nation-building narratives.
His distinguished fellowship record includes support from premier historical institutions:
- Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
- C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience
- Library Company of Philadelphia
- Rockefeller Library at Colonial Williamsburg
- Filson Historical Society
- David Library of the American Revolution
- Clements Library at the University of Michigan
- International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello
Parkinson's teaching repertoire encompasses graduate and undergraduate courses on the American Revolution, colonial America, history of American slavery, Native American history, and comparative race-making processes. His pedagogical approach integrates primary source analysis with theoretical frameworks examining power, violence, and identity formation in the early modern Atlantic world.
