Awards
- Fulbright Award - 1955
John Albert Robbins, Jr. received his B.A. and his M.A. from the University of Florida. Robbins also attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he was an assistant instructor. A former instructor at Duke University, he joined Indiana University's faculty in 1950 and the chairman of the freshman literature program in the English Department. Robbins retired from IU as a Professor Emeritus in 1985.
Robbins also served as the editor of American Literary Scholarship, a publication of the Modern Language Association, from 1968 to 1973, and a co-editor from 1976 to 1988.
Robbins was an American literature scholar whose interests included bibliography and American poetry. He had a special interest in the works of Frost, Edgar Allan Poe and Ezra Pound.
Robbins published a book "An Interlude with Robert Frost" in 1982. The volume is based off Robbins' correspondence with Robert Frost, which began while he was a student at the University of Florida.