Professor Gilroy’s areas of scholarly interest encompass postcolonial studies, particularly with regard to London, postimperial melancholia and the emplotment of English victimage; the literature and cultural politics of European decolonisation; African American intellectual and cultural history, literature and philosophy; the formation and reproduction of national identity especially with regard to race and “identity”; the literary and theoretical significance of port cities and pelagics. Gilroy has also published on art, music and social theory.
His current projects are the writing of Alain Locke, the cultural significance of aerial bombardment and the autobiographical writing generated by colonial wars.
Paul Gilroy previously been Giddens Professor of Social Theory at the London School of Economics (2005-2012); Charlotte Marian Saden Professor of African American Studies and Sociology at Yale (1999-2005); chair of the Dept. of African American Studies, Yale (2002-2005), and Professor of Cultural Studies and Sociology at Goldsmiths College (1995-1999).