Tommie Shelby
Professor of African and African American Studies and of Philosophy. (Undergraduate Program Director)
Address:
Harvard University
Department of African and African American Studies
Barker Center
12 Quincy Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: 617.496.8546
Fax: 617.496.2871
Email: tshelby@fas.harvard.edu
Courses | Biography | Recent Publications | Curriculum Vitae
Courses
AAAS 128: Black Nationalism
AAAS 130: W. E. B. Du Bois: Social and Political Writings
Biography
Interests: African American philosophy; philosophical perspectives on race and racism; social and political philosophy; Marxist social theory.
Professor Shelby, a philosopher and political theorist, joined the Department of African and African American Studies in 2000. He has most recently completed a book on African American political philosophy, entitled We Who Are Dark: Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity (Harvard University Press, 2005) and co-edited, with Derrick Darby, Hip Hop and Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason (Open Court Publishing , 2005). Other publications include "Race and Social Justice: Rawlsian Considerations," Fordham Law Review 72 (2004); "Blackness and Blood: Interpreting African American Identity," with Lionel K. McPherson, Philosophy & Public Affairs 32 (March 2004); "Two Conceptions of Black Nationalism: Martin Delany on the Meaning of Black Political Solidarity," Political Theory 31 (October 2003); "Ideology, Racism, and Critical Social Theory," The Philosophical Forum (2003); "Parasites, Pimps, and Capitalists: A Naturalistic Conception of Exploitation," Social Theory and Practice (2002); "Is Racism in the 'Heart'?" Journal of Social Philosophy (2002); and "Foundations of Black Solidarity: Collective Identity or Common Oppression?" Ethics (2002).
Professor Shelby earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh in 1998, and his B.A. magna cum laude at Florida A & M University in 1990. Before coming to Harvard, he was Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Ohio State University (1998-2000).
Recent Publications
We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity, (Harvard University Press, 2005)
Hip Hop and Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason, with Derrick Darby (Open Court Publishing, 2005)
"Black Nationalism," in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy On-Line, Edward Craig (ed.) (Routledge, 2005)