Author · Educator · Philosopher · Minister

Dr. Granby’s work is rooted in black religious, philosophical, and cultural traditions and draws extensively from the history of philosophy and theology. His scholarship and teaching reflect an interdisciplinary approach to the ethics of love, the politics of listening, and the practice of social criticism. He earned a Ph.D. in Religion, Ethics, and Politics from Princeton University, a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Memphis, and a B.A. in Political Science from Wake Forest University.

The Racial Politics of Listening: Deference, Power, and Relationality (Oxford University Press, 2026) has received glowing praise from scholars and critics across the country. Dr. Granby’s second book, Truth in Love: The Ethics of Social Criticism, is currently under review. He has also written for general readers on the challenges of “Reckoning with Climate Denial.”

An award-winning educator, Dr. Granby has taught philosophy, religious studies, and black studies for nearly two decades. His teaching owes much to The Governor’s School of North Carolina, a state-funded summer immersion program designed for the educational enrichment of high schoolers, where he was a student and where he returned to teach philosophy for five summers between 2009-2014.

He is currently an Associate Professor of Ethics, Philosophy, and Africana Studies at Yale University Divinity School, where he has been since 2016. He also teaches high school students from New Haven public schools as part of the tuition-free Citizens, Writers, Thinkers Program.

A licensed minister, Dr. Granby has been deeply shaped by the writings of Howard Thurman, James Baldwin, and Martin Luther King, Jr. He has delivered sermons, workshops, and lectures at churches across the country, from North Carolina and Tennessee, to New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, where he now resides with his three children.

Fiercely insightful and generous in spirit, Dr. Granby possesses the rare capacity to invite his listeners into challenging conversations while also building bridges across difference and empowering them to transform—with levity, wit, and grace. Whether on the page, behind the pulpit, in the classroom, or at the conference table, he brings the fullness of his wide-ranging gifts to any encounter.