Robbie Richardson is a Mi’kmaw scholar and a member of the Pabineau First Nation in New Brunswick. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Princeton University, where he specializes in eighteenth-century British and transatlantic literature, material culture, and Indigenous studies. His work explores the intersections of colonial imagination, British modernity, and the representation of Indigenous peoples in literary and cultural texts, and the circulation of Indigenous knowledge and epistemology through material culture.
Richardson received his Ph.D. in English and Cultural Studies from McMaster University, followed by a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship at Carleton University’s Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art, and Culture. Before joining Princeton, he taught at the University of Kent in Canterbury and Paris. He currently holds a Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers at the Free University of Berlin.
His first book, The Savage and Modern Self: North American Indians in Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Culture, examines how literary and material representations of Indigenous peoples shaped British identity, consumerism, and imperial expansion during the Enlightenment. He is currently at work on a new project that investigates the circulation and collection of Indigenous objects in Britain before 1800.
Richardson has contributed articles and essays to a wide range of publications, including Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, American Literary History, Studies in Romanticism, and Small Things in the Eighteenth Century. His scholarly output also includes entries, reviews, and edited volumes on Indigenous presence in British literary history and museums, with particular focus on themes of violence, captivity, diplomacy, and the construction of the “savage” within empire.
His article “Consuming Indians: Tsonnonthouan, Colonialism, and the Commodification of Culture” explores the satirical novel Memoirs of the Life and Adventures of Tsonnonthouan (1763) and its portrayal of Indigenous people as participants in, and subjects of, British consumerism. In “Tomahawks and Scalping Knives: Manufacturing Savagery with British Steel,” he traces the symbolism of weapons in colonial diplomacy and trade. His article “The Stubborn Will to Mean: Sympathy, Relationality, and the Origins of Collecting Indigenous Bones in the Eighteenth Century” traces the origins of the European collecting of Indigenous ancestors and funerary objects, and Indigenous responses to being objectified.
Richardson is also involved in public scholarship and media, contributing to platforms such as the Counterspeculations audio tour series and the Journal of British Studies. His work brings critical Indigenous perspectives into conversations about archives, empire, and the legacy of settler colonialism in cultural institutions.
Contact Information
Email: robbier@princeton.edu
Select Recent Work
“The Stubborn Will to Mean: Sympathy, Relationality, and the Origins of Collecting Indigenous Bones in the Eighteenth Century,” ELH (English Literary History), forthcoming Summer 2026.
“Decolonizing Eighteenth-Century Studies: An Indigenous Perspective.” Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture/Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 52, no. 1 (January 1, 2023): 35–39. https://doi.org/10.1353/sec.2023.0004.
“Robbie Richardson – the ‘Kunstkammer’ as Contact Zone: Indigenous Knowledge in Habsburg Collections.” Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies. YouTube. July 25, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8271ZMVIfM.
“‘Pray What a Pox Are Those Damned Strings of Wampum?’” In Small Things in the Eighteenth Century: The Political and Personal Value of the Miniature, edited by Chloe Wigston Smith and Beth Fowkes Tobin. Cambridge University Press, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108993296.011.
“CEMS ANU Seminar 2, Robbie Richardson, “The Souls of Departed Utensils.” October 28, 2021.” CEMS ANU. YouTube. December 20, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPrXPkbxUkM.
“Tomahawks and Scalping Knives: Manufacturing Savagery With British Steel.” In Material Literacy in Eighteenth-Century Britain: A Nation of Makers, edited by Serena Dyer and Chloe Wigston Smith. Bloomsbury Press, 2020. https://kar.kent.ac.uk/71291/.
“ODSECS 7: Robbie Richardson.” Open Digital Seminar in Eighteenth-Century Studies. YouTube. November 18, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STEY1SpY19U.
The Savage and Modern Self: North American Indians in Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Culture. University of Toronto Press, 2018. https://utppublishing.com/doi/book/10.3138/9781487503444.
“Consuming Indians: Tsonnonthouan, Colonialism, and the Commodification of Culture.” Eighteenth-Century Fiction 22, no. 4 (2010): 693–715. https://doi.org/10.1353/ecf.0.0160.