Africana Studies
North Academic Building
85 Mission Park Drive
Williams College
Williamstown, MA 01267
Phone: (413) 597-2242
Fax: (413) 597-4222

Chair:
Prof. Shanti M. Singham
ssingham@williams.edu

Administrative Assistant:
Lucy Gardner Carson
Lucy.G.Carson@williams.edu

Neil Roberts received his Ph.D. in Political Science from The University of Chicago in 2007 with a specialization in political theory. Originally from Kingston, Jamaica, he splits his time between the United States and the Caribbean, maintaining familial and intellectual ties that continually cross nation-state borders. A high school teacher, debate coach, and NCAA Division 1 soccer player at Brown University prior to graduate school, Roberts is the recipient of fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Social Science Research Council, as well as a member of the Caribbean Philosophical Association (CPA) Board of Directors. His present writings deal with the intersections of Caribbean, Continental, and North American political theory with respect to theorizing the concept of freedom. He is the author of published and forthcoming articles, reviews, and book chapters in The Cambridge Dictionary of Political Thought, Caribbean Studies, Clamor magazine, The C.L.R. James Journal, Encyclopedia of Political Theory, Journal of Haitian Studies, New Political Science, Philosophia Africana, Philosophy in Review/Comptes Rendus Philosophiques, Political Theory, Sartre Studies International, Shibboleths, Souls, and an anthology devoted to the work of Caribbean thinker Sylvia Wynter. Roberts is currently co-editor of both the CAS Working Papers in Africana Studies Series (with Ben Vinson) and a collection of essays (with Jane Anna Gordon) on the theme "Creolizing Rousseau." His dissertation, "Freedom as Marronage: The Dialectic of Slavery and Freedom in Arendt, Pettit, Rousseau, Douglass, and the Haitian Revolution," is the basis for a book manuscript in progress. Roberts enjoys spending time with his wife and toddler son, international travel, recreational soccer, reading groups, uncovering the etymology of words from antiquity to the present, discussing Rastafari political theology, and listening to reggae and dancehall music.

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