Robin Kelley

Robin D. G. Kelley is a Distinguished Professor of History and African American Studies and the Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at the University of California, Los Angeles. He earned his Ph.D. in United States History from UCLA in 1987, M.A. in African History from UCLA in 1985, and B.A. in History from California State University, Long Beach in 1983. Kelley's research specializations include the history of social movements in the U.S., the African Diaspora, and Africa; Black intellectuals; labor history; culture encompassing music, visual art, and film; racial capitalism and political economy; colonialism; Marxism; surrealism; and policing. Throughout his career, he has held prominent positions such as Professor of History and American Studies at the University of Southern California (2006-2011), Professor of Anthropology and African American Studies at Columbia University (2003-2007), Professor of History and Africana Studies at New York University (1994-2003), Associate Professor at the University of Michigan (1990-1994), and Assistant Professor at Emory University (1988-1990). He has also been a visiting professor at Stanford University, Oxford University, Harvard University, and others, including Chair of the Department of African American Studies at UCLA (2016-2017).

The author of acclaimed books such as Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (Free Press, 2009), Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (Beacon Press, 2002; new edition 2022), Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression (University of North Carolina Press, 1990; new edition 2015), Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class (Free Press, 1994), and Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times (Harvard University Press, 2012), Kelley has co-edited works including To Make Our World Anew: A History of African Americans (with Earl Lewis, Oxford University Press, 2000) and the eleven-volume Young Oxford History of African Americans (1995-1998). He is completing Making a Killing: Cops, Capitalism, and the War on Black Life (Henry Holt, 2026). His essays have appeared in The Nation, New York Times, New Yorker, New York Review of Books, American Historical Review, and others; he serves as Contributing Editor for Boston Review. Kelley has been honored with election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2016), Guggenheim Fellowship (2014-2015), Angela Y. Davis Prize for Public Scholarship (2015), and Freedom Scholar Award (2021), among many others.

Professional Email: rdkelley@history.ucla.edu