Robin D. G. Kelley
Robin D. G. Kelley
Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History
Email: rdkelley@ss.ucla.edu
Office: 5383 Bunche Hall
Phone: 310-825-3469
Class Website Curriculum VitaeBiography
Robin D. G. Kelley is Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at UCLA. Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is the recipient of many awards and fellowships, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Freedom Scholar Award. His books include the prize-winning Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (Free Press, 2009); Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (Beacon Press, 2002, new ed. 2022); Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression (University of North Carolina Press, 1990, new ed. 2015); Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America (Beacon Press, 1997); Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class (Free Press, 1994); Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times (Harvard University Press, 2012); with Howard Zinn and Dana Frank, Three Strikes: The Fighting Spirit of Labor’s Last Century (Beacon Press, 2001); Into the Fire: African Americans Since 1970 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
He is currently completing two books, Making a Killing: Cops, Capitalism, and the War on Black Life (Henry Holt, 2026) The Education of Ms. Grace Halsell: An Intimate History of the American Century (in progress, Henry Holt).
He is also co-editor of the following books: Our History Has Always Been Contraband: In Defense of Black Studies (Colin Kaepernick and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor) (Haymarket Books, 2023); Walter Rodney, The Russian Revolution: A View From the Third World (with Jesse Benjamin) (Verso, 2018); The Other Special Relationship: Race, Rights and Riots in Britain and the United States (with Stephen Tuck) (Palgrave, 2015); Black, Brown and Beige: Surrealist Writings from Africa and the African Diaspora (with Franklin Rosemont) (University of Texas Press, 2009); To Make Our World Anew: A History of African Americans (with Earl Lewis) (Oxford University Press, 2000); Imagining Home: Class, Culture, and Nationalism in the African Diaspora (with Sidney J. Lemelle) (Verso Books, 1995); and the eleven volume Young Oxford History of African Americans (with Earl Lewis) (1995-1998).
His essays have appeared in dozens of publications, including The Nation, New York Times, New Yorker, New York Review of Books, Hammer and Hope, American Historical Review, American Quarterly, Black Scholar, Dissent, Counterpunch, African Studies Review, Social Text, Journal of American History, Journal of Palestine Studies, New Labor Forum, and The Boston Review, for which he also serves as Contributing Editor.
Kelley hosted the critically acclaimed podcast, Erroll Garner Uncovered, and has written liner notes for recordings by jazz legends and rising stars, including Thelonious Monk, Erroll Garner, Chick Corea, Randy Weston, Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Owens, Gil Scott-Heron, James Brandon Lewis, Aja Monet, Miles Okazaki, Teodross Avery, Asher Gamedze, Ben Wolfe, and Claire Daly.
Research
Research areas have ranged widely, covering radical movements in the U.S., the African Diaspora, and Africa (notably South Africa); Black intellectuals; Labor history; Culture (music, visual art, film); racial capitalism and political economy; Colonialism; Marxism; Surrealism; and policing.
Publications
Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012)
Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (The Free Press, 2009).
**Italian translation: Thelonious Monk: Storia di un Genio Americano, trans. Marco Bertoli (Roma: Minimum Fax, 2012).
Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (Beacon Press, 2002)
with Howard Zinn and Dana Frank, Three Strikes: The Fighting Spirit of Labor’s Last Century (Beacon Press, 2001)
Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1997).
**Translated in Japanese, as Yo Mama’s DisFunktional!: Representing America’s Urban Crisis (Hanmoto Publishers, 2007), translated by Kosuzu Abe and Katsuyuki Murata. New foreword by author
Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class (New York: The Free Press, 1994).
Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1990).
Edited Books and Collections
Our History Has Always Been Contraband: In Defense of Black Studies, eds. Colin Kaepernick and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2023).
Walter Rodney, The Russian Revolution: A View From the Third World, eds. Robin D. G. Kelley and Jesse Benjamin (New York: Verso, 2018)
The Other Special Relationship: Race, Rights and Riots in Britain and the United States, eds. Robin D. G. Kelley and Stephen Tuck (New York: Palgrave, 2015)
Black, Brown and Beige: Surrealist Writings from Africa and the African Diaspora eds. Robin D. G. Kelley and Franklin Rosemont (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009).
To Make Our World Anew: A History of African Americans, eds. Robin D. G. Kelley and Earl Lewis (Oxford University Press, 2000). Two Volume edition, 2004.
Imagining Home: Class, Culture, and Nationalism in the African Diaspora , eds. Sidney J. Lemelle and Robin D. G. Kelley (London: Verso Books, 1995).
SELECTED RECENT ARTICLES
“Notes on Fighting Trumpism,” Boston Review (November 12, 2024)
“1948: Israel, South Africa, and the Question of Genocide,” Hammer & Hope 3 (Spring 2024)
“The Long War on Black Studies,” New York Review of Books (June 17, 2023)
“Reversing the Silence: Thelonious Monk Lost (and Found) in Paris,” Boston Review (April 6, 2023)
“The Death and Life of My Father, Donald S. Kelley,” The Nation (October 10, 2022)
“Twenty Years of Freedom Dreams,” Boston Review (August 1, 2022)
“Abolition Democracy’s Forgotten Founder,” Boston Review (April 19, 2022)
