• Ph.D., University of Washington, 1988
• M.F.A., Indiana University at Bloomington, 1984
• B.A., Indiana University at Bloomington, 1981

Research Interests:  

Robyn Wiegman is Professor of Literature and Women's Studies and formerly the Margaret Taylor Smith Director of Women's Studies at Duke, from 2001-2007. She earned her Ph.D. in American Literature at the University of Washington in 1988 and has taught at Syracuse University, Indiana University, and the University of California, Irvine. Her publications include two monographs---Object Lessons (2012) and American Anatomies: Theorizing Race and Gender (1995)---and five edited collections---Who Can Speak: Identity and Critical Authority (1995), Feminism Beside Itself (1995), AIDS and the National Body (1997), The Futures of American Studies (2002), and Women's Studies on Its Own (2002). Wiegman's research interests include feminist theory, queer theory, American Studies, critical race theory, and film and media studies. She was co-director of the Dartmouth Summer Institute on American Studies from 1998-2004 and director of Women's Studies at UC-Irvine from 1997-2000. She is currently co-editing (with Elizabeth Wilson) a special issue of differences on "Queer Theory without Anti-Normativity" and working on two monographs: Racial Sensations, on affect and anti-racist aesthetics, and Arguments Worth Having, on key debates in feminist and queer theory. In 2013 she received the Dean's Award for Excellence in Mentoring from the Graduate School at Duke University.

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

Papers Published

• Wiegman, R. "Queer Seductions." American Literary History 38.1 (May, 2026): 202-219. [doi]  [abs]
• Wiegman, R. "What If? Lesbian Feminism and the Future’s Now." Signs 51.1 (September, 2025): 237-261. [doi]  [abs]
• Hemmings, C; Wiegman, R. "On Collective Endurance: Thinking Gender Studies in Illiberal Times—A Conversation." Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 46.1 (2025): 1-44. [doi]  [abs]
• Wiegman, R. "Critical Response VI Creatures of Habit." Critical Inquiry 51.1 (September, 2024): 197-202. [doi]
• Wiegman, R. "Feminism and the Impasse of Whiteness; or, Who’s Afraid of Rachel Doležal?." South Atlantic Quarterly 122.3 (July, 2023): 453-483. [doi]