Curtis J. Evans
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195328189
- eISBN:
- 9780199870028
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195328189.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
W. E. B. Bu Bois and other black leaders played a crucial role in the creation of the “Negro Church.” By using the language and tools of the social sciences, black intellectuals and leaders hoped to ...
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W. E. B. Bu Bois and other black leaders played a crucial role in the creation of the “Negro Church.” By using the language and tools of the social sciences, black intellectuals and leaders hoped to incite and urge the black churches to use their resources to assist and uplift a people downtrodden by racism and economic oppression. Instrumentalists, those who wanted to use the church as a means or instrument for other ends (besides religion), came to dominate interpretations of black religion among African American leaders. Although Du Bois initially hoped to provide detailed local studies of black churches, his long‐term legacy (and that of other black leaders) was to foster longstanding debates about whether the “Black Church” supported or undermined a racist status quo.Less
W. E. B. Bu Bois and other black leaders played a crucial role in the creation of the “Negro Church.” By using the language and tools of the social sciences, black intellectuals and leaders hoped to incite and urge the black churches to use their resources to assist and uplift a people downtrodden by racism and economic oppression. Instrumentalists, those who wanted to use the church as a means or instrument for other ends (besides religion), came to dominate interpretations of black religion among African American leaders. Although Du Bois initially hoped to provide detailed local studies of black churches, his long‐term legacy (and that of other black leaders) was to foster longstanding debates about whether the “Black Church” supported or undermined a racist status quo.
Lawrie Balfour
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195377293
- eISBN:
- 9780199893768
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195377293.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter addresses Du Bois's inquiry into his own exemplarity, his status as both an exemplar or “exception” and an example of “the Problem.” It offers an interpretation of Dusk of Dawn, Du ...
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This chapter addresses Du Bois's inquiry into his own exemplarity, his status as both an exemplar or “exception” and an example of “the Problem.” It offers an interpretation of Dusk of Dawn, Du Bois's 1940 autobiographical exploration of his life and the life of the “race concept,” as a counterpoint to William Connolly's account of identity and difference. Read together, Du Bois and Connolly demonstrate how identity categories shape democratic life; but Du Bois takes a further step, discerning those places in Connolly's work where race is elided and gesturing toward an alternative model of self-fashioning in a racially divided society.Less
This chapter addresses Du Bois's inquiry into his own exemplarity, his status as both an exemplar or “exception” and an example of “the Problem.” It offers an interpretation of Dusk of Dawn, Du Bois's 1940 autobiographical exploration of his life and the life of the “race concept,” as a counterpoint to William Connolly's account of identity and difference. Read together, Du Bois and Connolly demonstrate how identity categories shape democratic life; but Du Bois takes a further step, discerning those places in Connolly's work where race is elided and gesturing toward an alternative model of self-fashioning in a racially divided society.
Lawrie Balfour
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195377293
- eISBN:
- 9780199893768
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195377293.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter considers how the worldly orientation of Du Bois's political thought might inform political theory as it turns toward the global. The central text in this case is an unlikely one. While ...
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This chapter considers how the worldly orientation of Du Bois's political thought might inform political theory as it turns toward the global. The central text in this case is an unlikely one. While scholars increasingly appreciate the extent of Du Bois's transnational activism and writing in the mid-20th century, this chapter concentrates on The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade the United States of America, 1638–1870 (1896). It argues that Du Bois's first book, although thoroughly American, nonetheless demonstrates the impossibility of constructing a theory of democracy that restricts its concern within US boundaries. Using a contrast between “black world” and “white nation,” it suggests how a close reading of Suppression in conjunction with Martha Nussbaum's For Love of Country reveals the unacknowledged racial politics of recent appeals to cosmopolitanism, on the one hand, and civic nationalism, on the other.Less
This chapter considers how the worldly orientation of Du Bois's political thought might inform political theory as it turns toward the global. The central text in this case is an unlikely one. While scholars increasingly appreciate the extent of Du Bois's transnational activism and writing in the mid-20th century, this chapter concentrates on The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade the United States of America, 1638–1870 (1896). It argues that Du Bois's first book, although thoroughly American, nonetheless demonstrates the impossibility of constructing a theory of democracy that restricts its concern within US boundaries. Using a contrast between “black world” and “white nation,” it suggests how a close reading of Suppression in conjunction with Martha Nussbaum's For Love of Country reveals the unacknowledged racial politics of recent appeals to cosmopolitanism, on the one hand, and civic nationalism, on the other.
Jonathon S. Kahn
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195307894
- eISBN:
- 9780199867516
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195307894.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Against the normative view of W. E. B. Du Bois as hostile to and uninterested in religion, this book argues that religion furnishes Du Bois writings with their distinctive moral vocabulary. Du Bois's ...
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Against the normative view of W. E. B. Du Bois as hostile to and uninterested in religion, this book argues that religion furnishes Du Bois writings with their distinctive moral vocabulary. Du Bois's work is a rich world of sermonic essays, jeremiads, biblical rhetoric, and prayers all of which are devoted to the overarching goal of fighting for the spiritual, political, and social conditions of those who “live within the Veil.” This book argues that Du Bois fashions his religious voice from two sources: African American religion and American pragmatism. Du Bois's religious voice draws on the natural piety of the slave spirituals, the protestations of the African American jeremiad, the language of sacrifice, and the preacher's facility with biblical rhetoric. From the American pragmatists, Du Bois finds a heterodox religious register that shuns metaphysical and supernatural realities for an earthly form of salvation rooted in human relations. By using pragmatist tools to embrace African American religious resources without their normative metaphysical commitments, Du Bois creates a new black faith: a radical version of pragmatic religious naturalism. This account of Du Bois's religious voice frees us from shoehorning Du Bois into ready-made Christian constructions; his religious heterodoxy runs too deep and throughout his life he chafed against the label, “Christian.” It allows us to imagine Du Bois as practicing what might be understood as an original black American faith—one that pays homage to African American Christian pasts, but radically reconfigures them for a democratic and ecumenical future.Less
Against the normative view of W. E. B. Du Bois as hostile to and uninterested in religion, this book argues that religion furnishes Du Bois writings with their distinctive moral vocabulary. Du Bois's work is a rich world of sermonic essays, jeremiads, biblical rhetoric, and prayers all of which are devoted to the overarching goal of fighting for the spiritual, political, and social conditions of those who “live within the Veil.” This book argues that Du Bois fashions his religious voice from two sources: African American religion and American pragmatism. Du Bois's religious voice draws on the natural piety of the slave spirituals, the protestations of the African American jeremiad, the language of sacrifice, and the preacher's facility with biblical rhetoric. From the American pragmatists, Du Bois finds a heterodox religious register that shuns metaphysical and supernatural realities for an earthly form of salvation rooted in human relations. By using pragmatist tools to embrace African American religious resources without their normative metaphysical commitments, Du Bois creates a new black faith: a radical version of pragmatic religious naturalism. This account of Du Bois's religious voice frees us from shoehorning Du Bois into ready-made Christian constructions; his religious heterodoxy runs too deep and throughout his life he chafed against the label, “Christian.” It allows us to imagine Du Bois as practicing what might be understood as an original black American faith—one that pays homage to African American Christian pasts, but radically reconfigures them for a democratic and ecumenical future.
Dohra Ahmad
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195332766
- eISBN:
- 9780199868124
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195332766.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter analyzes the utopian fiction of Pauline Hopkins and W. E. B. Du Bois. In response to a long-standing problem with emplacement, both authors use their fiction to manufacture idealized ...
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This chapter analyzes the utopian fiction of Pauline Hopkins and W. E. B. Du Bois. In response to a long-standing problem with emplacement, both authors use their fiction to manufacture idealized and ahistorical versions of colored empires. Hopkins creates an underground Ethiopian kingdom, while Du Bois uses the force of imagination to link India and the American South into a cohesive but still multiplicitous whole. Hopkins posits utopia not as a unidirectional process of development but a resurrection of an earlier order, while Du Bois strategically employs romance to overcome the limitations of a pragmatic politics of compromise. Their romantic utopianism both responds to Booker T. Washington’s uplift ideology and also participates in a larger philosophy of internationalism emerging in response to colonial rule.Less
This chapter analyzes the utopian fiction of Pauline Hopkins and W. E. B. Du Bois. In response to a long-standing problem with emplacement, both authors use their fiction to manufacture idealized and ahistorical versions of colored empires. Hopkins creates an underground Ethiopian kingdom, while Du Bois uses the force of imagination to link India and the American South into a cohesive but still multiplicitous whole. Hopkins posits utopia not as a unidirectional process of development but a resurrection of an earlier order, while Du Bois strategically employs romance to overcome the limitations of a pragmatic politics of compromise. Their romantic utopianism both responds to Booker T. Washington’s uplift ideology and also participates in a larger philosophy of internationalism emerging in response to colonial rule.
Lawrie Balfour
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195377293
- eISBN:
- 9780199893768
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195377293.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter begins with a brief discussion of the controversy sparked by the Virginia General Assembly's introduction of a joint resolution on January 10, 2007, atoning for Virginia's part in the ...
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This chapter begins with a brief discussion of the controversy sparked by the Virginia General Assembly's introduction of a joint resolution on January 10, 2007, atoning for Virginia's part in the enslavement of Africans and calling for racial reconciliation. It then sets out the purpose of the book, which is to come to terms with political theorists' reluctance to treat race and racial injustice as fundamental to the study of modern democratic life. Drawing on the writing of W. E. B. Du Bois, the book examines how his efforts to craft a usable past from unspeakable loss can inspire efforts to conceive alternative, more democratic futures. An overview of the subsequent chapters is presented.Less
This chapter begins with a brief discussion of the controversy sparked by the Virginia General Assembly's introduction of a joint resolution on January 10, 2007, atoning for Virginia's part in the enslavement of Africans and calling for racial reconciliation. It then sets out the purpose of the book, which is to come to terms with political theorists' reluctance to treat race and racial injustice as fundamental to the study of modern democratic life. Drawing on the writing of W. E. B. Du Bois, the book examines how his efforts to craft a usable past from unspeakable loss can inspire efforts to conceive alternative, more democratic futures. An overview of the subsequent chapters is presented.
Lawrie Balfour
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195377293
- eISBN:
- 9780199893768
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195377293.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter looks at Du Bois's efforts to correct distorted understandings of Reconstruction, by focusing on African Americans' role in abolition and by redefining the post-war era as the nation's ...
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This chapter looks at Du Bois's efforts to correct distorted understandings of Reconstruction, by focusing on African Americans' role in abolition and by redefining the post-war era as the nation's only genuine experiment in democracy. It is argued that examining the connections Du Bois draws between historical consciousness and the disappointments of the post-Reconstruction period enlarges our understanding of the disappointments that followed the civil rights era or “second reconstruction.” Although Du Bois does not expressly advocate reparations for the former slaves and their descendants, the chapter turns to The Souls of Black Folk and Black Reconstruction to suggest the possibilities opened up by a shift from a political language of formal equality, which is premised on the erasure of the past, to a language that affirms and refigures the past as a vehicle for social change. It asks how reparations might constitute such a language.Less
This chapter looks at Du Bois's efforts to correct distorted understandings of Reconstruction, by focusing on African Americans' role in abolition and by redefining the post-war era as the nation's only genuine experiment in democracy. It is argued that examining the connections Du Bois draws between historical consciousness and the disappointments of the post-Reconstruction period enlarges our understanding of the disappointments that followed the civil rights era or “second reconstruction.” Although Du Bois does not expressly advocate reparations for the former slaves and their descendants, the chapter turns to The Souls of Black Folk and Black Reconstruction to suggest the possibilities opened up by a shift from a political language of formal equality, which is premised on the erasure of the past, to a language that affirms and refigures the past as a vehicle for social change. It asks how reparations might constitute such a language.
Lawrie Balfour
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195377293
- eISBN:
- 9780199893768
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195377293.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter considers the political implications of Du Bois's 1909 recasting of John Brown's life story. Written at a time when antiblack violence was actively abetted or at least unanswered by ...
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This chapter considers the political implications of Du Bois's 1909 recasting of John Brown's life story. Written at a time when antiblack violence was actively abetted or at least unanswered by white political leaders, John Brown reveals how the disavowal of the violence of the past underwrites current practices of racialized brutality and explores what it would mean to come to terms with the idea that “John Brown was right.” It is argued that although the biography vindicates Brown and his campaign, it also unsettles Brown's conception of American mission and models a tragic form of historical memory that ought to inform our own reflections on race and violence in an age of terror.Less
This chapter considers the political implications of Du Bois's 1909 recasting of John Brown's life story. Written at a time when antiblack violence was actively abetted or at least unanswered by white political leaders, John Brown reveals how the disavowal of the violence of the past underwrites current practices of racialized brutality and explores what it would mean to come to terms with the idea that “John Brown was right.” It is argued that although the biography vindicates Brown and his campaign, it also unsettles Brown's conception of American mission and models a tragic form of historical memory that ought to inform our own reflections on race and violence in an age of terror.
Joshua Kotin
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691196541
- eISBN:
- 9781400887866
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691196541.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter concerns W. E. B. Du Bois's utopianism during the last fifteen years of his life, after his final break with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The ...
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This chapter concerns W. E. B. Du Bois's utopianism during the last fifteen years of his life, after his final break with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The chapter tracks his increasing commitment to Soviet communism and examines the difficulty and efficacy of his Autobiography (1962, 1968). It asks how Du Bois's utopianism led, finally, to a utopia of one. In the book, Du Bois does more than document the development of his thinking about race and politics, and prefigure the “philosophy of Black Power”—he attempts to radically transform his life. Autobiography is fundamentally different from Du Bois's earlier autobiographies. Indeed, the book addresses the future—an American public (black and white) finally ready to hear the truth about liberalism and communism.Less
This chapter concerns W. E. B. Du Bois's utopianism during the last fifteen years of his life, after his final break with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The chapter tracks his increasing commitment to Soviet communism and examines the difficulty and efficacy of his Autobiography (1962, 1968). It asks how Du Bois's utopianism led, finally, to a utopia of one. In the book, Du Bois does more than document the development of his thinking about race and politics, and prefigure the “philosophy of Black Power”—he attempts to radically transform his life. Autobiography is fundamentally different from Du Bois's earlier autobiographies. Indeed, the book addresses the future—an American public (black and white) finally ready to hear the truth about liberalism and communism.
Lawrie Balfour
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195377293
- eISBN:
- 9780199893768
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195377293.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter focuses on the 1920 essay “The Damnation of Women,” Du Bois's collective biography of African American women. Despite the masculinism that defines much of his writing, and the tensions ...
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This chapter focuses on the 1920 essay “The Damnation of Women,” Du Bois's collective biography of African American women. Despite the masculinism that defines much of his writing, and the tensions that qualify even his strongest arguments on behalf of gender equality, this essay demands that readers grapple with the meaning of “womanhood” and “citizenship” through the lens of black women's history. It also reorients feminist citizenship theory in the United States by demonstrating the need to go beyond reckoning with race to confront the lingering shadows of slavery.Less
This chapter focuses on the 1920 essay “The Damnation of Women,” Du Bois's collective biography of African American women. Despite the masculinism that defines much of his writing, and the tensions that qualify even his strongest arguments on behalf of gender equality, this essay demands that readers grapple with the meaning of “womanhood” and “citizenship” through the lens of black women's history. It also reorients feminist citizenship theory in the United States by demonstrating the need to go beyond reckoning with race to confront the lingering shadows of slavery.
James Edward Ford III
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780823286904
- eISBN:
- 9780823288939
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823286904.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
Notebook 3 continues to build on the concept of the multitude. Du Bois calls the region of the multitude that pursues truth and justice the “dark proletariat.” This chapter theorizes the dark ...
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Notebook 3 continues to build on the concept of the multitude. Du Bois calls the region of the multitude that pursues truth and justice the “dark proletariat.” This chapter theorizes the dark proletariat’s revolutionary force analyzing the argument and form of Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction, especially the chapters on “The General Strike” and “The Coming of the Lord.” With this analysis, Du Bois’s account of the dark proletariat during the Civil War marks the historical expression of the divine violence Walter Benjamin identifies but cannot historically locate in his enigmatic essay “Critique of Violence.” Divine violence undoes the guilt that binds the oppressed to the law and State. While Benjamin sought his example among the working class in Europe’s metropoles, Du Bois makes the figure of the fugitive slave the protagonist of his narrative.Less
Notebook 3 continues to build on the concept of the multitude. Du Bois calls the region of the multitude that pursues truth and justice the “dark proletariat.” This chapter theorizes the dark proletariat’s revolutionary force analyzing the argument and form of Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction, especially the chapters on “The General Strike” and “The Coming of the Lord.” With this analysis, Du Bois’s account of the dark proletariat during the Civil War marks the historical expression of the divine violence Walter Benjamin identifies but cannot historically locate in his enigmatic essay “Critique of Violence.” Divine violence undoes the guilt that binds the oppressed to the law and State. While Benjamin sought his example among the working class in Europe’s metropoles, Du Bois makes the figure of the fugitive slave the protagonist of his narrative.
Nahum Dimitri Chandler
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823254064
- eISBN:
- 9780823261239
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823254064.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, American Philosophy
Through the privileged example of W. E. B. Du Bois’ s 1940 text Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept, this chapter shows how a critical autobiographical practice might ...
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Through the privileged example of W. E. B. Du Bois’ s 1940 text Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept, this chapter shows how a critical autobiographical practice might sustain a self-reflexive theoretical account of the grounds of practices of self-identification. It poses the question of the limits of the reception of Du Bois’ s thought among major contemporary theorists. And, it proposes that Du Bois’ s critical account of the problem of identification - one can neither leave it nor keep it - from his turn of the century formulation of “double-consciousness” to his mid-century account, should be generalized to address questions of identity in general in America and across the modern era. Work by Edmund Husserl, Ralph Ellison, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Hortense Spillers, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak are addressed in the course of this exploration.Less
Through the privileged example of W. E. B. Du Bois’ s 1940 text Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept, this chapter shows how a critical autobiographical practice might sustain a self-reflexive theoretical account of the grounds of practices of self-identification. It poses the question of the limits of the reception of Du Bois’ s thought among major contemporary theorists. And, it proposes that Du Bois’ s critical account of the problem of identification - one can neither leave it nor keep it - from his turn of the century formulation of “double-consciousness” to his mid-century account, should be generalized to address questions of identity in general in America and across the modern era. Work by Edmund Husserl, Ralph Ellison, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Hortense Spillers, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak are addressed in the course of this exploration.
W. E. B. Du Bois
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748622054
- eISBN:
- 9780748651993
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748622054.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This chapter analyses the unexplored aspects of W. E. B. Du Bois's work, along with the interrelationships between culture and ethnicity, describing Du Bois as a writer who follows the cultural ...
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This chapter analyses the unexplored aspects of W. E. B. Du Bois's work, along with the interrelationships between culture and ethnicity, describing Du Bois as a writer who follows the cultural nationalism of Yeats in trying to give a voice to disenfranchised people, but whose nationalism has no clear geographical dimension. It shows that Du Bois's writings emerge from the tensions which result from a desire for the retention of black cultural difference and for political equality in America. The chapter concludes that Du Bois's social and cultural thought is characterised by contradiction, and that he introduces cultural pluralism into his writings.Less
This chapter analyses the unexplored aspects of W. E. B. Du Bois's work, along with the interrelationships between culture and ethnicity, describing Du Bois as a writer who follows the cultural nationalism of Yeats in trying to give a voice to disenfranchised people, but whose nationalism has no clear geographical dimension. It shows that Du Bois's writings emerge from the tensions which result from a desire for the retention of black cultural difference and for political equality in America. The chapter concludes that Du Bois's social and cultural thought is characterised by contradiction, and that he introduces cultural pluralism into his writings.
Daniel Hack
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691196930
- eISBN:
- 9781400883745
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691196930.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This chapter turns to W. E. B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk and its deployment of nineteenth-century British literature. Du Bois himself tends to attract the adjective “Victorian” as a ...
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This chapter turns to W. E. B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk and its deployment of nineteenth-century British literature. Du Bois himself tends to attract the adjective “Victorian” as a descriptor—of his intellectual formation, his prose style, his aesthetic, his morality—with greater frequency than virtually any other figure in the African American literary and intellectual tradition. The chapter shows that critics have been too quick to generalize about the presence of nineteenth-century British literature in Souls. They have rarely asked why Du Bois selected the specific authors, texts, and passages he cites or how these citations contribute to and intervene in a tradition of African American citation and intertextuality. Addressing these questions not only nuances our understanding of Du Bois's rhetorical strategy but also leads us to reconsider a seemingly settled question in the scholarship on Souls: the role Du Bois assigns culture in the fight for racial equality.Less
This chapter turns to W. E. B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk and its deployment of nineteenth-century British literature. Du Bois himself tends to attract the adjective “Victorian” as a descriptor—of his intellectual formation, his prose style, his aesthetic, his morality—with greater frequency than virtually any other figure in the African American literary and intellectual tradition. The chapter shows that critics have been too quick to generalize about the presence of nineteenth-century British literature in Souls. They have rarely asked why Du Bois selected the specific authors, texts, and passages he cites or how these citations contribute to and intervene in a tradition of African American citation and intertextuality. Addressing these questions not only nuances our understanding of Du Bois's rhetorical strategy but also leads us to reconsider a seemingly settled question in the scholarship on Souls: the role Du Bois assigns culture in the fight for racial equality.
Alexander Livingston
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780813174907
- eISBN:
- 9780813174914
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813174907.003.0009
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This essay, by Alexander Livingston, analyzes Du Bois’s 1909 biography of the abolitionist John Brown as a work that reveals Du Bois’s beliefs about the meaning and limitations of sacrifice in ...
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This essay, by Alexander Livingston, analyzes Du Bois’s 1909 biography of the abolitionist John Brown as a work that reveals Du Bois’s beliefs about the meaning and limitations of sacrifice in politics. Published amid a national movement toward the “Lost Cause” narrative of the Civil War, John Brown was an indictment of this mentality, pushing readers to continue the fight for racial equality. As with many of Du Bois’s works, central to the book is the concept of sacrifice by all citizens for the good of the democracy. Using the death of John Brown as a symbol of the sacrificial burdens faced by people of color, Du Bois reframes the racialized economy of the Jim Crow era and recasts black Americans as sacrificial agents instead of victims.Less
This essay, by Alexander Livingston, analyzes Du Bois’s 1909 biography of the abolitionist John Brown as a work that reveals Du Bois’s beliefs about the meaning and limitations of sacrifice in politics. Published amid a national movement toward the “Lost Cause” narrative of the Civil War, John Brown was an indictment of this mentality, pushing readers to continue the fight for racial equality. As with many of Du Bois’s works, central to the book is the concept of sacrifice by all citizens for the good of the democracy. Using the death of John Brown as a symbol of the sacrificial burdens faced by people of color, Du Bois reframes the racialized economy of the Jim Crow era and recasts black Americans as sacrificial agents instead of victims.
Frederick C. Beiser
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691163093
- eISBN:
- 9781400852536
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691163093.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter examines the controversy generated by the August 14, 1872, lecture of Emil Du Bois-Reymond, Rector of Berlin University and one of the most prominent physiologists of his age. Du ...
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This chapter examines the controversy generated by the August 14, 1872, lecture of Emil Du Bois-Reymond, Rector of Berlin University and one of the most prominent physiologists of his age. Du Bois-Reymond declared that there are two insurmountable limits to all scientific knowledge: the nature of matter; and the connection between consciousness and the brain. All scientific knowledge oscillated between these two limits—matter and mind—which served as impassable border posts. About these two topics, Du Bois-Reymond maintained, we would forever remain ignorant. To emphasize the point, he concluded his speech with the solemn and emphatic Latin word: “Ignorabimus!” We will be ignorant. The reaction to his lecture was as tumultuous as its content was controversial. It was the starting point for an intense discussion about the limits of natural science that would last for decades.Less
This chapter examines the controversy generated by the August 14, 1872, lecture of Emil Du Bois-Reymond, Rector of Berlin University and one of the most prominent physiologists of his age. Du Bois-Reymond declared that there are two insurmountable limits to all scientific knowledge: the nature of matter; and the connection between consciousness and the brain. All scientific knowledge oscillated between these two limits—matter and mind—which served as impassable border posts. About these two topics, Du Bois-Reymond maintained, we would forever remain ignorant. To emphasize the point, he concluded his speech with the solemn and emphatic Latin word: “Ignorabimus!” We will be ignorant. The reaction to his lecture was as tumultuous as its content was controversial. It was the starting point for an intense discussion about the limits of natural science that would last for decades.
Lawrence A. Scaff
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691147796
- eISBN:
- 9781400836710
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691147796.003.0007
- Subject:
- Sociology, Population and Demography
This chapter examines how Max Weber's travel through the American South helped him gain a better understanding of the problems of race and race relations in the former Confederacy, forty years after ...
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This chapter examines how Max Weber's travel through the American South helped him gain a better understanding of the problems of race and race relations in the former Confederacy, forty years after the end of the Civil War. Weber's reasons for making the journey from St. Louis, Missouri, through Memphis, Tennessee, to New Orleans, then north through Tuskegee, Alabama, to Atlanta and beyond are not entirely clear. He was interested in questions about race and the consequences of slavery, and his interest in agrarian economies also would have attracted him to the post-Civil War South. The chapter first considers Weber's exchanges with W.E.B Du Bois, which illuminate the former's focused interest in the problem of race in America, before discussing the lessons learned by Weber from his stay at Tuskegee. It also explores how Weber's experience in the South influenced his ideas about race, ethnicity, class, and caste.Less
This chapter examines how Max Weber's travel through the American South helped him gain a better understanding of the problems of race and race relations in the former Confederacy, forty years after the end of the Civil War. Weber's reasons for making the journey from St. Louis, Missouri, through Memphis, Tennessee, to New Orleans, then north through Tuskegee, Alabama, to Atlanta and beyond are not entirely clear. He was interested in questions about race and the consequences of slavery, and his interest in agrarian economies also would have attracted him to the post-Civil War South. The chapter first considers Weber's exchanges with W.E.B Du Bois, which illuminate the former's focused interest in the problem of race in America, before discussing the lessons learned by Weber from his stay at Tuskegee. It also explores how Weber's experience in the South influenced his ideas about race, ethnicity, class, and caste.
R. Blakeslee Gilpin
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807835012
- eISBN:
- 9781469602608
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807869277_gilpin.9
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter discusses W. E. B. Du Bois's closing speech at the Harpers Ferry Niagara convention in August 1906. Du Bois's remarks articulated the goals of his fledgling organization and its intense ...
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This chapter discusses W. E. B. Du Bois's closing speech at the Harpers Ferry Niagara convention in August 1906. Du Bois's remarks articulated the goals of his fledgling organization and its intense connections to John Brown. We “believe in John Brown,” Du Bois told the Niagara attendees, “in that incarnate spirit of justice, that hatred of a lie, that willingness to sacrifice money, reputation, and life itself on the altar of right. And here on the scene of John Brown's martyrdom, we reconsecrate ourselves, our honor, our property to the final emancipation of the race which John Brown died to make free.” As he would do on numerous occasions, Du Bois used John Brown to engage the past as a means to make sense of the present and put forth plans for the future.Less
This chapter discusses W. E. B. Du Bois's closing speech at the Harpers Ferry Niagara convention in August 1906. Du Bois's remarks articulated the goals of his fledgling organization and its intense connections to John Brown. We “believe in John Brown,” Du Bois told the Niagara attendees, “in that incarnate spirit of justice, that hatred of a lie, that willingness to sacrifice money, reputation, and life itself on the altar of right. And here on the scene of John Brown's martyrdom, we reconsecrate ourselves, our honor, our property to the final emancipation of the race which John Brown died to make free.” As he would do on numerous occasions, Du Bois used John Brown to engage the past as a means to make sense of the present and put forth plans for the future.
Melvin L. Rogers
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780813174907
- eISBN:
- 9780813174914
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813174907.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This essay by Melvin L. Rogers provides an account of the political meaning of the term “the people,” using it to examine the rhetorical character of The Souls of Black Folk and the work’s ...
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This essay by Melvin L. Rogers provides an account of the political meaning of the term “the people,” using it to examine the rhetorical character of The Souls of Black Folk and the work’s relationship to the cognitive-affective dimension of judgment. Du Bois illustrates the way the categorization of “the people” makes normative work possible, while drawing attention to the gap between the descriptive and aspirational definitions of “the people” and the mechanisms used to bridge it. This gap prompted Du Bois to stimulate and direct America’s political and ethical imagination, appealing for polity even as he knew he could never be assured of success. As a work of political theory, The Souls of Black Folk connects rhetoric to emotional states as a way to eliminate the divide between descriptive and aspirational definitions of “the people.”Less
This essay by Melvin L. Rogers provides an account of the political meaning of the term “the people,” using it to examine the rhetorical character of The Souls of Black Folk and the work’s relationship to the cognitive-affective dimension of judgment. Du Bois illustrates the way the categorization of “the people” makes normative work possible, while drawing attention to the gap between the descriptive and aspirational definitions of “the people” and the mechanisms used to bridge it. This gap prompted Du Bois to stimulate and direct America’s political and ethical imagination, appealing for polity even as he knew he could never be assured of success. As a work of political theory, The Souls of Black Folk connects rhetoric to emotional states as a way to eliminate the divide between descriptive and aspirational definitions of “the people.”
Arash Davari
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780813174907
- eISBN:
- 9780813174914
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813174907.003.0010
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
Arash Davari’s essay examines the representation of contemporary social movements in popular culture and media, tracing the recent global shift from centralized models of self-governance to more ...
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Arash Davari’s essay examines the representation of contemporary social movements in popular culture and media, tracing the recent global shift from centralized models of self-governance to more collective forms that better align with modern democratic ideals. Black political culture is undergoing the same shift, rejecting the old form of male charismatic leadership. Davari questions whether this is the most effective strategy of achieving a democratic future oriented toward racial justice and radical democracy, and turns to the early writings of W. E. B. Du Bois as a model for better representation and articulation of social change. Du Bois’s early writings are reflections on social change for racial justice, and they affirm the idea that power cannot be eliminated, only reconstituted in ways that are compatible with democratic values.Less
Arash Davari’s essay examines the representation of contemporary social movements in popular culture and media, tracing the recent global shift from centralized models of self-governance to more collective forms that better align with modern democratic ideals. Black political culture is undergoing the same shift, rejecting the old form of male charismatic leadership. Davari questions whether this is the most effective strategy of achieving a democratic future oriented toward racial justice and radical democracy, and turns to the early writings of W. E. B. Du Bois as a model for better representation and articulation of social change. Du Bois’s early writings are reflections on social change for racial justice, and they affirm the idea that power cannot be eliminated, only reconstituted in ways that are compatible with democratic values.
