Robert “Bob” Deam Tobin was born in 1961 in Urbana, Illinois, though he was raised in Eugene, Oregon. He attended Harvard University earning his A.B. in German Literature in 1983 and earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in German Literature from Princeton University in 1987 and 1990, respectively. He began his teaching career at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington in 1989. In 1993, his class "Sexuality and Textuality," was the first sexuality-focused class at Whitman, and he was a founding member of the Gender Studies Department later that year. He also taught and researched in German Studies, LGBTQ studies, film studies, and the humanities. He served as the Associate Dean of the Faculty and Chair of the Humanities, and was named Cushing Eells Professor of Humanities.

At Whitman, Tobin served as a faculty advisor to the Gay Lesbian Association (GLA). Beginning in 1989, GLA was a small, highly confidential student group funded through alumni donors to maintain independence and privacy. In 1992, wanting to maintain the necessary confidentiality of GLA, but desiring a more activist LGBTQ rights-focused student group, Tobin and student Alexis Cofield founded Coalition Against Homophobia for both LGBTQ activists and straight allies. Throughout the 1990s, Coalition Against Homophobia made a name for itself as the voice of LGBTQ issues on campus, hosting many major LGBTQ-focused events like DragFest, LesBiGay Week, and Rainbow Rage, many of which became Whitman traditions for the next decade. During his time at Whitman, Tobin was also involved with Whitman’s gay alumni group, Whitman Gay and Lesbian Alumni (WGALA) and contributed to the WGALA newsletter.

After teaching at Whitman for 18 years, Tobin began teaching at Clark University in the fall of 2008 as the inaugural Henry J. Leir Chair in Language, Literature, and Culture. At Clark, he taught and researched in gay and lesbian studies, queer theory, gender studies, human rights, and German and European cultural studies. He published four books, including Warm Brothers: Queer Theory and the Age of Goethe (2000). Bob Tobin died on August 10, 2022 in Worcester, Massachusetts.