Hollis Robbins
@hrobbins · Joined August 2025
When she's not writing, Hollis Robbins is Professor of English and Special Advisor for Humanities Diplomacy at the University of Utah, where she previously served as Dean of the College of Humanities. From 2018 to 2022, she was Dean of Arts & Humanities at Sonoma State University. Her academic field is American and African American Literature, and for two decades she has served as Co-Director and Managing Editor of the Black Periodical Literature Project at Harvard University. She is currently working on four books: a monograph on Robert Hayden (Penguin), an anthology of African American sonnets, an anthology of essays on Hannah Crafts's The Bondwoman's Narrative, and a new edition of The Trials of Phillis Wheatley with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Hollis writes and speaks regularly on AI, as well as on the role of university leaders and administrators in safeguarding academic freedom and free speech on campus.
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Article · Vision Without Seeing (Part II): Did Ronald Reagan Have Aphantasia?
In Part 2 of her review, Hollis Robbins explores what Zeman's book means for those who imagine without images. Drawing on her own experiences with chess, psychedelics, and poetry, she argues that aphantasia is not a deficit but a different cognitive architecture—one that models the world through language. She then turns to presidential rhetoric to ask a provocative question: did Ronald Reagan have aphantasia? And what does it mean when the rhetorical patterns of 'the great communicator' look strikingly like those of an LLM?
Article · Decoding Without Pictures - Aphantasia and Literacy in the AI Era
Hollis Robbins reveals how Mississippi's reading revolution validates what people with aphantasia have always known: you don't need mental pictures to decode language. This essay argues that teaching reading as pure pattern-matching and code-breaking—not visualization—prepares all students for an AI-saturated world.
Article · The Shape of Things Unseen: A Review of Adam Zeman's Book (Part 1)
The neurologist who identified aphantasia shows how we construct reality through imagination in his new book. As someone with aphantasia, I, Hollis Robbins, found his insights both validating and illuminating. Blending neuroscience, poetry, and poignant case studies, Zeman shows that imagination—visual or not—is central to human experience. This thoughtful, timely book reveals why our capacity to imagine remains one of humanity’s most defining traits.