Corey Robin

Raised in a Jewish family in Chappaqua, New York,{{Cite web|url=https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/188090/straight-outta-chappaqua|title=Is Corey Robin the Ultimate Facebook Lefty, Twitter Radical, and Anti-Zionist Scourge?|date=January 7, 2015|website=Tablet Magazine}} Robin graduated from Princeton University, majoring in history, and received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University in 1999.{{cite journal|url=http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:9931997|title=Fear: Biography of an idea|first=E. Corey|last=Robin|date=24 August 1999|journal=Dissertation Abstracts International|accessdate=24 August 2018|via=orbis.library.yale.edu Library Catalog}}{{Cite web |date=April 10, 2023 |title=Corey Robin, Faculty Profile |url=https://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/web/academics/faculty/faculty_profile.jsp?faculty=446 |website=Brooklyn College}}

Robin is the author of the books Fear: The History of a Political Idea, which won the Best First Book in Political Theory Award from the American Political Science Association, and The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin. Upon publication in 2011, The Reactionary Mind immediately generated tremendous controversy and discussion, including an extended back and forth in the letters page of The New York Review of Books{{cite news|last=Robin|first=Corey|url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/02/23/reactionary-mind-exchange/|title=The Reactionary Mind: An Exchange|work=The New York Review of Books|date=February 23, 2012|access-date=September 9, 2019}} as well as an article on the controversy in The New York Times.{{cite news|last=Schuessler|first=Jennifer|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/books/corey-robins-reactionary-mind-stirs-internet-debate.html|title=Online Fracas for a Critic of the Right|work=The New York Times|date=January 18, 2012|access-date=September 9, 2019}} But with the ascent of Donald Trump, the book came to be seen as one of the most prescient analyses of modern American politics, leading The New Yorker, in a lengthy reconsideration of the book, to call it "the book that predicted Trump."{{Cite magazine|date=2016-11-01|title=The Book That Predicted Trump|url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-book-that-predicted-trump|access-date=2021-12-01|magazine=The New Yorker|language=en-US}} A second edition of The Reactionary Mind was published in 2018 with a new subtitle, "From Edmund Burke to Donald Trump", and was received positively.{{Cite web|url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/conservatives-and-counterrevolutionaries-corey-robins-the-reactionary-mind/|title=Conservatives and Counterrevolutionaries: Corey Robin's "The Reactionary Mind"|last=|first=|date=19 January 2018|website=Los Angeles Review of Books|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}}{{Cite magazine|url=https://newrepublic.com/article/145951/book-reactionary-times|title=A Book for Reactionary Times|last=|first=|date=|magazine=The New Republic|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.salon.com/2017/11/19/reconsidering-the-reactionary-mind-in-the-age-of-you-know-who/|title=Reconsidering "The Reactionary Mind" in the age of you-know-who|last=|first=|date=19 November 2017|website=Salon|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}}

As interim director at the Graduate Center for Worker Education at Brooklyn College in 2013, Robin was part of the decision-making process to restructure the program. In a Portside essay, Robin urged readers to ignore a petition protesting the elimination of funding.{{cite web|url=http://portside.org/2013-07-31/corey-robin-please-do-not-sign-brooklyn-college-worker-ed-petition-0|title=Corey Robin: Please Do Not Sign Brooklyn College Worker Ed Petition|date=31 July 2013 |publisher=|accessdate=24 August 2018}} On August 1, 2013, Portside published a statement by Immanuel Ness, editor of WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society, also of Brooklyn College, countering Robin and urging that the petition be signed.{{cite web|url=http://portside.org/2013-08-01/support-worker-education-cuny-response-corey-robin-still-another-perspective-worker-ed|title=Support Worker Education at CUNY - Response to Corey Robin - Still Another Perspective on Worker Ed Program|date=August 2013 |publisher=|accessdate=24 August 2018}} Robin responded to these criticisms, providing a litany of details regarding his opinions about mismanagement and questionable use of the facility.{{cite web|url=http://coreyrobin.com/2013/07/30/more-information-on-brooklyn-college-worker-ed-center|title=More Information on Brooklyn College Worker Ed Center|website=coreyrobin.com|date=30 July 2013 |accessdate=24 August 2018}}

Robin has turned his attention to the case of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Often dismissed by the left, Thomas has become one of the more influential figures on the Court. Robin's book, The Enigma of Clarence Thomas (2019), is the first to examine the black nationalist roots of Thomas's jurisprudence and the first book from the left to take seriously Thomas's jurisprudence of the right. It garnered pre-publication plaudits from Kirkus Reviews(“a penetrating profile of the Supreme Court’s longest-serving justice”){{Incomplete short citation|date=December 2021}} and The Atlantic.("In his provocative new book, The Enigma of Clarence Thomas, Corey Robin...is deconstructing a sphinx, and his point carries the uncomfortable ring of truth."){{Incomplete short citation|date=December 2021}}

While Robin devotes much of his scholarly research to the right, he also writes extensively for newspapers and magazines about a wide variety of issues of concern on the left. In 2018, he wrote a widely noticed essay in the New York Times on the meaning of socialism today, which examines how Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are remaking a 19th-century tradition for the twenty-first century. He has written widely about the politics of labor and the workplace, and the recovery of freedom for the left. He also writes about intellectuals such as Hannah Arendt,{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/opinion/sunday/what-socialism-looks-like-in-2018.html|title=The New Socialists|last=|first=|date=24 August 2018|website=The New York Times|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|last1=Robin |first1=Corey }}{{Cite web|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/trials-hannah-arendt/|title=The Trials of Hannah Arendt|last=|first=|date=|website=The Nation|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191206192753/https://www.thenation.com/article/trials-hannah-arendt/|archive-date=2019-12-06|access-date=|url-status=dead}} Eric Hobsbawm,{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/eric-hobsbawm-the-communist-who-explained-history|title=Eric Hobsbawm, the Communist Who Explained History|last=|first=|date=|magazine=The New Yorker|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}} Cass Sunstein,{{Cite web|url=https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-Intellectuals-Create-a/234984|title=How Intellectuals Create a Public|last=|first=|date=22 January 2016|website=The Chronicle of Higher Education|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}} and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Publishers Marketplace reported in March 2023 that Robin was writing a forthcoming work, King Capital, described as "a history of economics and its discontents," to be published by Random House.{{Cite web |title=King Capital |date=9 March 2023 |url=https://coreyrobin.com/2023/03/09/king-capital |access-date=2023-04-11 |language=en-US}}

His articles have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, The New York Times,{{cite news |last1=Szalai |first1=Jennifer |title='The Enigma of Clarence Thomas' Makes a Strong Case for Its Provocative Thesis (Published 2019) |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/23/books/review-enigma-clarence-thomas-corey-robin.html |access-date=31 December 2020 |work=The New York Times |date=23 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190924014412/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/23/books/review-enigma-clarence-thomas-corey-robin.html |archive-date=24 September 2019 |url-status=live}} The London Review of Books, n+1, the American Political Science Review, Social Research, Jacobin, Politico,{{Cite web |last=Robin |first=Corey |title=Opinion {{!}} The Clarence Thomas Scandal Is About More Than Corruption |url=https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/04/18/clarence-thomas-scandal-corruption-00092335 |access-date=2023-04-19 |website=POLITICO |date=18 April 2023 |language=en}} and Theory and Event.

• Fear: The History of a Political Idea (2004). New York and London. Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-515702-8}}.
• The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin (2011). Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-979374-3}}.
• The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump (2017). Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|978-0190692001}}, updated version of title above.{{Cite web | title=The Reactionary Mind - Paperback - Corey Robin - Oxford University Press | url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-reactionary-mind-9780190692001?cc=de&lang=en& | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230125125609/https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-reactionary-mind-9780190692001?cc=de&lang=en& | access-date=2025-02-23 | archive-date=2023-01-25}}
• [http://coreyrobin.com/enigma/ The Enigma of Clarence Thomas] (2019). Metropolitan Books. {{ISBN|9781627793834}}

• [http://lists.village.virginia.edu/lists_archive/sixties-l/2776.html "The Ex-Cons: Right-Wing Thinkers Go Left!"]. Lingua Franca (January 2001). pp. 24–33
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20080516033247/http://www.bostonreview.net/BR29.1/robin.html "Endgame"] (2004). Boston Review (February/March 2004).
• [https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/fear-liberals/ "The Fear of the Liberals"]. The Nation (September 26, 2005).
• [https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/strangers-land/ "Strangers in the Land"] (2006). The Nation (March 23, 2006).
• [https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/out-place-0/ "Out of Place"] (2008). The Nation (June 4, 2008).
• "[https://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n20/corey-robin/achieving-disunity Achieving Disunity]" London Review of Books (October 25, 2012), 23–25.
• "[https://www.thenation.com/article/trials-hannah-arendt/ The Trials of Hannah Arendt] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191206192753/https://www.thenation.com/article/trials-hannah-arendt/ |date=2019-12-06 }}" The Nation (June 1, 2015), 12–25.
• "[https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-Intellectuals-Create-a/234984 How Intellectuals Create a Public]" The Chronicle Review (January 22, 2016), B10-14.
• "[https://harpers.org/archive/2018/04/forget-about-it/ Forget About It]" Harper’s (April 2018), 5–7.
• "[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/opinion/sunday/what-socialism-looks-like-in-2018.html The New Socialists]" The New York Times (August 26, 2018), Sunday Review, 1.
• [https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-plight-of-the-political-convert "The Plight of the Political Convert"] The New Yorker (January 23, 2019).
• [https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/eric-hobsbawm-the-communist-who-explained-history "Eric Hobsbawm, the Communist Who Explained History"] The New Yorker (May 9, 2019).
• [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/09/opinion/joe-biden-political-time.html "Why the Biden Presidency Feels Like Such a Disappointment"] The New York Times (Dec 9, 2021).

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• [http://coreyrobin.com Robin's personal blog]
• {{C-SPAN|1012046}}

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Category:Living people

Category:1967 births

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Category:21st-century American Jews