Paul Gilroy

Paul Gilroy at the Geschwister-Scholl award ceremony at LMU

Paul Gilroy (born February 16, 1956 in London ) is a British professor at King's College London . Prior to that, he was the first holder of the Anthony Giddens Chair in Social Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Charlotte Marian Saden Professor of African American Studies and Sociology at Yale University . His main research interests are cultural studies and the culture of the African diaspora .

Career

Gilroy was born in the East End of London. His parents are of Guyanese and English descent. He attended University College School , Hampstead, and received a bachelor's degree from the University of Sussex in 1978 .

Gilroy worked for the Greater London Council during the 1980s before turning to academic research and teaching. He taught at Goldsmiths College of the University of London before a call to the Yale University followed, where he presided over the Institute of African American studies took on the Charlotte Marian façades worked as a professor of sociology. Since 2005 he has held the Anthony Giddens Chair in Social Theory at the London School of Economics before moving to King's College London in September 2012 . In 2014 he was made a member of the British Academy , and in 2018 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In 2019 he received the Holberg Prize .

Research priorities

Gilroy is known as a scholarly expert and historian on the music of the African diaspora , a reporter on political issues affecting race, nation and racism in the United Kingdom , and an antiquarian on the literary and cultural life of the People of Color in the Western Hemisphere.

His theories on race, racism and culture had a major impact on the cultural and political movements of Black British and British of Color during the 1990s. Along with Stuart Hall, Lenny Henry , Norman Jay and Ian Wright, he is one of the outstanding personalities who made it possible for Black British and British of Color to publicly propagate their affiliation and bond with the United Kingdom.

Fonts (selection)

• The Empire Strikes Back: race and racism in 1970s Britain (1982 - co-author).
• Ain't no Black in the Union Jack (1987).
• Small Acts (1993).
• The Black Atlantic (1993).
• Between Camps (2000).
• Postcolonial Melancholia (2004).