Robin D. G. Kelley

Early years and education Born in New York City, Kelley earned his bachelor's degree from California State University, Long Beach, in 1983. By 1987 he had earned a master's in African history and doctorate in U.S. history from UCLA. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford. 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." == Writing and publications ==

Kelley has written several books focusing on African-American history and culture as well as race relations, including Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class (1994), ''Yo' Mama's DisFunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America (1997), and Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (2002). He is also a prolific essayist, having published dozens of articles in scholarly journals, anthologies, and in the popular press, including the Village Voice, Boston Review, and The New York Times''. His 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 also received the PEN Open Book Award. The family of Thelonious Monk, notably his son T. S. Monk, granted Kelley access to rare historical documents for his biography. Kelley's 2012 book, Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times (2012), explores the relationship between jazz and Africa in the era of decolonization and Civil Rights. His works in progress include A World to Gain: A History of African Americans, with Earl Lewis and Tera Hunter, and a biography of journalist and adventurer Grace Halsell. ==Bibliography==