Robin Davis Gibran Kelley (born 1962) is a professor of History and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. From 2003 to 2006 he was the William B. Ransford Professor of Cultural and Historical Studies at Columbia University. From 1994-2003, he was a professor of history and Africana Studies at New York University as well the chairman of NYU's history department from 2002-2003. Robin Kelley has also served as a Hess Scholar-in-Residence at Brooklyn College. In the summer of 2000, Dr. Kelley was honored as a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College, where he taught and mentored a class of sophomores, as well as wrote the majority of the book, Freedom Dreams. During the academic year, 2009–2010, Kelley held the Harmsworth Chair of American History at Oxford University, the first African-American historian to do so since the chair was established in 1922.
After earning his doctorate, he began his career as an Assistant Professor at Southeastern Massachusetts University, then to Emory University, and the University of Michigan, where he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. He later moved to the Department of History at New York University, where he was promoted to the rank of Professor and taught courses on U.S. history, African-American history, and popular culture. At the age of 32, he was the youngest full professor at NYU.
Kelley has spent most of his career exploring American and African-American history, with a particular emphasis on radical social movements and the political dynamics at work within African-American culture, including jazz, hip-hop, and visual arts.
Although influenced by Marxism, Kelley has eschewed a doctrinaire Marxist approach to aesthetics and culture, preferring a modified surrealist approach. He has described himself in the past as a "Marxist surrealist feminist who is not just anti something but pro-emancipation, pro-liberation."[1]
Robin Kelley earned his Bachelor's degree from California State University, Long Beach in 1983. By 1987 he had earned his Master's in African history and doctorate in U.S. history from UCLA.
He has published several books focusing upon African-American history and culture as well as race relations, including Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class, and Yo' Mama's DisFunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America. Kelley is also a prolific essayist, having published dozens of articles in scholarly journals, anthologies, and in the popular press, including the Village Voice and the New York Times.
His most recent book, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (Free Press, 2009), received several honors, including Best Book on Jazz from the Jazz Journalists Association and the Ambassador Award for Book of Special Distinction from the English Speaking Union. It was a finalist for PEN USA Literary Award. The Monk family, notably Thelonious Monk Jr., granted Kelley access to rare historical documents for his biography. No other scholar has ever had such access and support from the Monk family. Kelley is also working on two other books: Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times and A World to Gain: A History of African Americans, with Earl Lewis and Tera Hunter.
On May 20, 2007, Kelley delivered the keynote address for the graduation ceremony of Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where his mother, Ananda Sattwa, was graduating with a Ph.D. The department had sought him to speak before, but this seemed to be the perfect opportunity, as he would be able to place the hood on his mother's head.[2]
In August 2009, Kelley married actress Lisa Gay Hamilton.