PEARL ROBINSON PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND STUDIES IN RACE, COLONIALISM, AND DIASPORA
Have you ever been so curious about something that you were drawn into late nights of research? Then you might connect well with Professor Pearl Robinson, who has spent decades combing through archives in the process of working on her most recent research project, the first intellectual biography of Ralph Bunche. Bunche is most well known for serving in the United Nations and receiving the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize, but Robinson seeks to highlight an often overlooked part of his life: his time spent studying colonialism in Africa, his time studying at Harvard, and as Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Howard University. As Professor Robinson puts it, “he had a career before he went into diplomacy. But much of his intellectual legacy has been erased. So, my book is really about… what we can learn from history and about people by studying erasures and why they happen.” Professor Robinson’s own journey through academia had a unique start. Initially studying French, a realization while studying abroad led her to the field of political science. “I spent my junior year studying at the University of Bordeaux… I had taken so many French courses that I found out that if I [took any there] they wouldn’t count towards graduation. So I had a whole year to just do anything that appeared to be interesting… I took my first ever course on African politics and my first ever international relations courses, and by the time I finished in Bordeaux, I knew what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing.” After receiving a masters in political science, Professor Robinson spent two
16
years volunteering for the Peace Corps working on public health education in Niger before studying for her PhD at Columbia. She joined Tufts’ faculty soon after graduating in 1975 and has been here ever since. Research plays a major role in Professor Robinson’s intellectual life, especially this past summer. Her research into Bunche’s intellectual erasure has led her around the country, combing through archives to recover his lesser-known papers and writings. “There are maybe four or five places people go [for archival research on Bunche]. This is my 17th archive.” A major reason for the breadth of her search is because “it’s really hard to research erasures… What I hope to do, besides getting this book written, is to make it possible for more people to do this kind of research.” The research that she has completed so far has been incredibly enlightening for understanding Bunche’s life before becoming professionally involved in international diplomacy. Bunche was the first Black person to receive a PhD in political science, and along the way he played minor league baseball to afford the degree and helped found Howard University’s political science department. He wrote a prize winning dissertation and was the “first person to get a PhD in a new IR subfield at Harvard called the International Relations of Dependencies.” Specifically, this subfield is dedicated to understanding colonialism from the perspective of the colonized. Traditionally, “you would go [to colonies] and you would read the colonial archives. You would talk to the people who are running the colonies. You would talk to the
missionaries, the traders. And what you learned about Africans, you read it in the archives, or what colonizers were saying to you.” Bunche wanted to flip the script, but faced difficulty in getting his dissertation published because what he was saying “went against the grain of what mainstream international relations and the people who were studying colonial administration and racialized hierarchical sovereignty believed.” According to Professor Robinson, “the things that have been erased were things that challenged the status quo and mainstream scholarship that was maintaining white supremacy.” Professor Robinson’s commitment to broadening mindsets and worldviews extends beyond the classroom. The three main pieces of advice she gives to students: study deliberately, take time for yourself, and study abroad. “Certain teachers can be an educational experience that will remain with you for life. Try to find out who some of those people are [and take their courses], it doesn’t matter what they teach.” Further, take physical education classes that give academic credit while providing physical activity because that will “get you on the track of having a lifestyle where you build relaxation into your regular program.” And finally, when considering studying abroad, pick programs that excite you but also be excited to come home because “you will appreciate Tufts more… You will come back with the experiences of another place and you will have a better way of making choices about how you spend the rest of your time here.”
