Freeburg is the former John A. and Grace W. Nicholson Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences and has an appointment in the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory. He is a distinguished critic of African American literature and culture. His recently published book, “Counterlife: Slavery after Resistance and Social Death,” advances the position that the last half-century of scholarship on slavery in the Americas is rooted in emergent sociology and social theory of the 1950s.
Roberts is a foremost expert on personality and its development in adulthood. His three major lines of research, considered to have fundamentally changed the field, are clarifying when and how personality traits change; identifying individual differences in personality traits impact on key life outcomes; and providing a comprehensive understanding of conscientiousness.