Faculty Leaders

Allyson Hobbs

assistant professor of American history

Allyson Hobbs is an assistant professor in the department of History at Stanford University. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1997 and she received a Ph.D. with distinction from the University of Chicago in 2009. Hobbs teaches courses on African American history, African American women’s history and twentieth century American history. She is particularly interested in identity formation, racial mixture, migration and urbanization and the intersections of race, class and gender. Her current book project examines the phenomenon of racial passing in the United States from the late eighteenth century to the present.  Hobbs argues that racial passing, the practice by which light-skinned African Americans deliberately chose to present themselves as white, opens a window onto the enduring problem of race in American society and onto the personal and intimate meanings of race and racial identity for African Americans.

 Professor Hobbs’ book is tentatively titled When Black Becomes White: A History of Racial Passing in American Life and it is under contract with Harvard University Press. 

ACCOLADES:

--Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize, Stanford University, June 2013

--Hoefer Faculty Mentor Prize, Stanford University, April 2013

--The Graves Award in the Humanities, February 2012

--St. Clair Drake Teaching Award, Stanford University, May 2010

--Hoefer Faculty Mentor Prize, Stanford University, April 2010

--Von Holst Prize Lectureship in History, University of Chicago, 2006