Rhondda Robinson Thomas
Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature
Contact
Department of English
Office: 711 Strode
Email: rhonddt@clemson.edu
Education
Ph.D. English, University of Maryland (2007); M.A. Literature, University of New Hampshire (2000); M.S. Journalism, University of Georgia (1988); B.S. Communication/Media Journalism, Columbia Union College (1983)
Courses
ENGL 4820: African American Literature to 1920; ENGL3980: American Literature Survey I; ENGL3990: American Literature Survey II; ENGL4960: Senior Seminar
Research Interests
18th- and 19th-century Black literature and culture and autobiographical writing
Rhondda Robinson Thomas is the Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature at Clemson University where she teaches, researches, and writes about early African American literature in the Department of English. She has published Call My Name, Clemson: Documenting the Black Experience in an American University Community, which received honorable mention in the National Council on Public History’s 2021 book awards, co-edited The South Carolina Roots of African American Thought, and edited volume 1 of Cambridge University Press’s African American Literature in Transitions series. She has also published essays in American Literary History, Southern Quarterly, Biography, and African American Review, as well as chapters in A History of African American Autobiography by Cambridge University Press and Oxford Handbook of the African-American Slave Narrative by Oxford University Press.
Thomas is the faculty director of the award-winning project Call My Name, for which she has received a Whiting Public Engagement Fellowship, grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, South Carolina Humanities, National Park Service, Mellon Foundation, and Clemson’s Office of the Provost and College of Arts and Humanities, and gifts through the Clemson University Foundation. She is writing a new play in collaboration with the Tectonic Theater Project, producing a eight-part video series based on research for Call My Name, and co-directing the SC Upstate Black Heritage Trail project.
In 2021, Thomas was Clemson University’s Senior Researcher of the Year and recipient of the Class of '39 award, the highest honor given to Clemson faculty for service to the university, community, and/or nation. She received a Fresh Voices in the Humanities award from South Carolina Humanities in October 2022. Currently, she serves as the faculty director of the Center for Community Engagement Research, Coordinator of Research and Community Engagement for Clemson University’s Cemetery Hill Project, and as a member of the South Carolina State Board of Review for the National Register of Historic Places.
Thomas earned a PhD in English from the University of Maryland, a master’s in literature from the University of Georgia, a master’s in journalism from the University of Georgia, and a bachelor’s degree in Communication Media/Journalism from Washington Adventist University (formerly Columbia Union College).
Selected Professional Works
Books (Published)
Call My Name, Clemson: Documenting the Black Experience in an American University Community. Humanities and Public Life Series, U of Iowa P, November 2020.
First edited and annotated edition of Jane Edna Hunter’s autobiography A Nickel and a Prayer. 1941. Regenerations series. Vol. 2. Morgantown, WV: West Virginia UP, 2011.
Books (In Production or Under Contract)
Completing Clemson History, co-edited with Joshua Catalano. Clemson UP, 2026.
The Voices of Black Clemson: Silenced No More, under contract at U of Georgia P.
Books (Edited)
African American Literature in Transition, 1750-1800, Vol. 1, editor. Cambridge UP, 2022.
Rhetoric, Public Memory, and Campus History, editor. Liverpool University Press & Clemson UP, 2022.
Journal Articles & Book Chapters (Published)
“The Unfinished Work of Clemson University: Full Recognition for Black Citizens in Its History,” invited essay, Lincoln’s Unfinished Work: From Generation to Generation. Louisiana State UP, 2022.
“Black Life Writing and Print Culture Before 1800,” invited essay, A History of African American Autobiography. Cambridge UP, 2021.
"Call My Name: Utilizing Biographical Storytelling to Reconceptualize the History of African Americans at Clemson University," invited essay, Special Issue -- Biographic Meditation: the Uses of Disclosure in Bureaucracy and Politics. Biography, fall 2019.
“Reconstruction, Public Memory, and the Making of Clemson University on John C. Calhoun's Fort Hill Plantation.” American Literary History, 30 July 2018.
“Locating Slave Narratives.” Oxford Handbook of the African American Slave Narrative. John Ernest, ed. Oxford UP, 2014.
Reviews & Interviews
Review of Celeste-Marie Bernier, Characters of Blood: Black Heroism in the Transatlantic Imagination (2012). Journal of American History, April 2013.
Digital Works, Videos, CDs & DVDs, Software (In Production)
From Civil War to Civil Rights in Clemson University's History, 8 episode video series, expected release in 2027.
Conference Presentations (Delivered)
“Diversifying Scholarly Editions,” roundtable, Modern Language Association Conference, New Orleans, January 2025.
“Common Study: Making Public Humanities,” roundtable, Modern Language Association Conference, San Francisco, January 2023.
“Literatures of Reconstruction and their Resonances for the Present,” roundtable, Modern Language Association Conference, Washington, DC, January 2022.
Invited Panelist: “Remedying the Silences of the Archive in Biographical Studies,” Picture a Scholar, Women’s Celebration Month Program, Clemson University, March 2022.
"Early American Literature in Transition I," Society of Early Americanists Conference 2019, Eugene, OR, February 2019.
"Routes and Roadblocks: Considerations of Home, Migration, and Belonging in Publicly Engaged Humanities Projects," Panelist, National Humanities Conference, Honolulu, HI, November 2019.
"Call My Name: Using Digital Storytelling to Commemorate the Contributions of Black Americans in Clemson University History," Intentionally Digital, Intentionally Black Conference, University of Maryland, October 2018.
Conference Proposals (Accepted or Submitted)
"Illuminating History with the Archives," The Power of Us: Libraries in Action, South Carolina Library Association 2025, Columbia, SC.
Grants
From Civil War to Civil Rights in Clemson University History, National Park Service, $55,625, May 2024. Fort Hall and Tillman Hall are two National Register listed properties on the Clemson University campus. The project will produce nine educational videos that examine the journey from the antebellum period when enslaved persons labored on the John C. Calhoun’s Fort Hill Plantation where Calhoun wrote his "Fort Hill Address" defending state nullification and upon which Clemson was built to the civil rights movement when Harvey Gantt desegregated Clemson after winning a class-action lawsuit and registering for classes in Tillman Hall on January 28, 1963.
Writer-in-Residence (2 weeks), Serenbe Art Farm, Palmetto, GA, December 2024, November 2023, and August 2023.
Black Heritage Trail, co-directed with Shelby Henderson, City of Seneca, Clemson University and Call My Name Coalition, Mellon Foundation, $3.44 million 3-year grant, January 2023.
Reconstructing the Black Archive: South Carolina as Case Study, 1739-1895, co-director with Susanna Ashton, and Kaniqua Robinson and Gregg Hecimovich of Furman University, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute grant, $587,811, October 2022.
My STEM My Story, co-PI with Renee Lyons and Corliss Outley, National Science Foundation, $1,916,958 3-year grant, August 2022.
Public Humanities Exhibitions: Implementation Grant, with co-PI Lee Morrissey, “The Black Experience in the South Carolina Upstate from Enslavement to Desegregation,” National Endowment for the Humanities, $400,000, April 2020.
