Patricia Hill Collins

Background

Patricia Collins was born on May 1, 1948 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Her parents were Albert Hill, a factory worker and World War II veteran, and Eunice Randolph Hill, a secretary. Patricia has no siblings.

Education

Collins attended the Philadelphia public schools. Even at a young age, Collins had the realization of her lived reality - she attended a school that catered to mostly white middle class students that was in a predominantly black neighborhood. Collins graduated from Brandeis University in 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts degree as a sociology major. She proceeded to earn a Master of Arts degree in Teaching (MAT) in Social Science Education from Harvard University in 1970. In 1984 she completed her doctorate in sociology and received her Ph.D. from Brandeis University.

Career

From 1970 to 1976, Patricia was a teacher and curriculum specialist at St. Joseph Community School in Roxbury, Boston. She became the Director of the Africana Center at Tufts University from 1976 to 1980. In 1990, Collins published her first book "Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment". She also worked as an assistant, then associate professor at the University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio from 1987 till 1993, as a professor of African American studies, since 1993, as Charles Phelps Taft Professor of Sociology in 1996. Collins headed minority fellowship program committee in 1992.

Achievements

• Collins is recognized as a social theorist, drawing from many intellectual traditions. Collins reconceptualize the ideas of race, class as well as gender as interlocking systems of oppression. Her more than 40 articles and essays have been published in a wide range of fields, including philosophy, history, psychology, and most notably sociology. Collins received C. Wright Mills Award for the first edition of Black Feminist Thought (1990), Distinguished Publication Award by the Association for the Women in Psychology for Black Feminist Thought (1991), Letitia Woods Brown Memorial Book Prize by the Association of Black Women Historians for Black Feminist Thought (1991), Award for Outstanding Service to African-American Students at the University of Cincinnati (1993), Jessie Bernard Award by the American Sociological Association for significant scholarship in the area of Gender (1993). She was named The Charles Phelps Taft Professor of Sociology by the University of Cincinnati, making her the first-ever African-American, and only the second woman, to hold this position (1996). She became Distinguished University Professor from University of Maryland (2006). In 2009 Collins earned Morris Rosenberg Award for Student Mentorship from the University of Maryland. In 2012 she received Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize for her contributions to racial and ethnic relations from Brandeis University.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (Routledge Classics)
  • Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism
  • Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice (Contradictions of Modernity)
  • On Intellectual Activism
  • From Black Power to Hip Hop: Racism, Nationalism, and Feminism (Politics History & Social Chan)
  • Race, Class, and Gender: An Anthology (Available Titles CengageNOW)
  • Another Kind of Public Education: Race, Schools, the Media, and Democratic Possibilities (A Simmons College/Beacon Press Race, Education, and Democracy Series Book)
  • Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice (Contradictions of modernity series) by Patricia Hill Collins (1998-09-01)

Views

Collins maintains an active research agenda and continues to write books and articles in relations to social racial and gender issues. Her current work has transcended the borders of the United States, in keeping with the recognition within sociological globalized social system. Collins is focused on understanding, in her own words: "How African American male and female youth's experiences with social issues of education, unemployment, popular culture and political activism articulate with global phenomena, specifically, complex social inequalities, global capitalist development, transnationalism, and political activism."

Quotations: "Oppressed groups are frequently placed in the situation of being listened to only if we frame our ideas in the language that is familiar to and comfortable for a dominant group. This requirement often changes the meaning of our ideas and works to elevate the ideas of dominant groups."

"Challenging power structures from the inside, working the cracks within the system, however, requires learning to speak multiple languages of power convincingly."

"Social conditions that spur large numbers of people into action are ignored in favor of a Hollywood version of history focusing on one conquering hero. Since a movement for social change is embodied in its leader, death of the leader means death of the movement."

Membership

Collins is the former head of the Department of African-American Studies at the University of Cincinnati, and a past President of the American Sociological Association Council.

Interests

• sociology of knowledge, race, class, gender studies

Connections

Patricia Collins is married to Roger L. Collins (an educator). The couple has a daughter Valerie Lisa.

husband:

Roger L. Collins

Daughter:

Valerie Lisa Collins