Education

Ph.D., Columbia University, 1999

M., Columbia University, 1993

M.A., University of Chicago

B.A., Wesleyan University

Research Interests

Dr. Collin’s Scholars@TAMU Profile

My published scholarship explores  the relationship between risk, altruism, sibling rivalry and sovereignty as that relationship emerges in works by a range of writers (including Etheridge Knight, Yusef Komunyakaa, Norman Mailer, Ayn Rand, Jacques Derrida, and Dante) and in institutions such as the Group of 77 developing nations. I am currently working on several scholarly and creative projects that extend my exploration of the nexus between risk, altruism, sibling rivalry and sovereignty.

Honors and Awards

• Poems in The Best American Poetry 2003 and Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of African American Poetry

Publications

Collins, Michael S.  Understanding Etheridge Knight.  University of South Carolina Press, 2013

Understanding Etheridge Knight introduces readers to a major—but understudied—American poet. Etheridge Knight (1931–1991) survived a shrapnel wound suffered during military service in Korea, as well as a drug addiction that led to an eight-year prison sentence, to publish five volumes of poetry and a small cache of powerful prose.

Collins, Michael.  The Traveling Queen.  2013

“Michael Collins’s poetry rises out of the core of being and seeing—with a touch of Revelations—always arching for the ethereal alongside the earthy low, arriving at the stillpoint of Self. It takes the reader to places of witness where meaning matters; Collins’s language of muscular grace made of experience and deep dreaming crosses landscapes to help reimagine our worlds.”
—Yusef Komunyakaa

Other Publications