Tommie Shelby is a philosopher and writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

. Shelby is currently Professor of African and African American Studies

African American studies

African American studies is a subset of Black studies or Africana studies. It is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to the study of the history, culture, and politics of African Americans...

 and Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

. He is the second black scholar to be tenured in the Philosophy Department at Harvard. The first was Kwame Anthony Appiah

Kwame Anthony Appiah

Kwame Anthony Appiah is a Ghanaian-British-American philosopher, cultural theorist, and novelist whose interests include political and moral theory, the philosophy of language and mind, and African intellectual history. Kwame Anthony Appiah grew up in Ghana and earned a Ph.D. at Cambridge...

, now a professor at Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

.

Shelby is the author of We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity (Harvard University Press, 2005) a philosophical treatise that attempts to dissect the history of black political thought from Martin Delany

Martin Delany

Martin Robinson Delany was an African-American abolitionist, journalist, physician, and writer, arguably the first proponent of American black nationalism. He was one of the first three blacks admitted to Harvard Medical School. He became the first African-American field officer in the United...

 to Malcolm X

Malcolm X

Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...

 and extrapolate a new theory for black political solidarity consistent with liberal values of individual liberty, social equality, and cultural tolerance. He is also the co-editor of Hip-Hop and Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason (Popular Culture and Philosophy) with Derrick Darby, Transition 99 with Henry Louis Gates Jr., K. Anthony Appiah and F. Abiola Irele

F. Abiola Irele

Francis Abiola Irele is a Nigerian academic who has been called the doyen of Africanist literary scholars worldwide. He is currently Provost at the newly-founded Kwara State University in Ilorin, Nigeria...

 and is the author of the entry on Black Nationalism

Black nationalism

Black nationalism advocates a racial definition of indigenous national identity, as opposed to multiculturalism. There are different indigenous nationalist philosophies but the principles of all African nationalist ideologies are unity, and self-determination or independence from European society...

 in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy On-Line.

Shelby earned his Ph.D in philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh

University of Pittsburgh

The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...

 with a dissertation directed by David Gauthier

David Gauthier

David Gauthier is a Canadian-American philosopher best known for his neo-Hobbesian social contract theory of morality, as laid out in his book Morals by Agreement.-Biography:...

. Before moving to Harvard he was assistant professor of philosophy at the Ohio State University

Ohio State University

The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...

. He currently serves as an editor of Transition Magazine

Transition Magazine

Transition Magazine , founded by Rajat Neogy , a Ugandan of Indian ancestry, was published from 1961 to 1976 on the African continent and was revived in 1991 in the United States. Born in Africa and bred in the Diaspora, Transition is a unique forum for the freshest, most compelling, most curious...

 and of the DuBois Review: Social Science Research on Race

DuBois Review: Social Science Research on Race

The Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race is published by Cambridge University Press for the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. The journal was established in 2004. It is a scholarly, multidisciplinary, and multicultural journal...

.

Shelby is the son-in-law of Harvard philosopher Thomas Scanlon

Thomas Scanlon

Thomas Scanlon is the name of:*T. M. Scanlon , professor of philosophy at Harvard University*Thomas E. Scanlon , U.S. congressman from Pennsylvania...

.

External links

• Faculty page at Harvard.edu
• We Who Are Dark on Amazon
• http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=525448#'Living to Learn', The Harvard Crimson
  The Harvard Crimson
  The Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates...
  
  profiles Professor Shelby, 19 November 2008]