Today’s conversation is with Robin Bernstein, who teaches in the Departments of History and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Her work focuses on U.S. racial formation from the nineteenth century to the present. A graduate of Yale’s doctoral program in American Studies and a Councilor and elected member of the American Antiquarian Society, she is the Dillon Professor of American History and Professor of African and African American Studies and of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University. She is also a faculty member in the undergraduate program in Theater, Dance, and Media.  With Stephanie Batiste and Brian Herrera, she edited the book series Performance and American Cultures for New York University Press. 

Her newest book is Freeman’s Challenge: The Murder that Shook America’s Original Prison for Profit (University of Chicago Press). Freeman’s Challenge won the 2025 PROSE Award for North American/U.S. History, the 2025 Montaigne Medal, and the 2025 Nonfiction Honor from the Massachusetts Book Award. Freeman’s Challenge also received Honorable Mention for the 2025 Merle Curti Award for Social History from the Organization of American Historians.