W.E.B. Du Bois and His Critics

AFRAMER 177X Subject & Catalog Number

Description

W. E. B. Du Bois was among the most profound thinkers of his time, devoting a forensic and evolving attention to the issue of race over a varied career that extended from the turn of the century to his death on the eve of the March on Washington in 1963. Although he earned his PhD from Harvard in history, he is increasingly seen as one of the pioneering scholars in the then-nascent field of sociology. In this course, we will employ a structure of text and critique to evaluate the reach and utility of his ideas, on subjects ranging from the development of racial consciousness to nuclear disarmament to the international order and the role of Africa, Africans, and African Americans in it. This course will examine Du Bois’s original writings in the context of the debates they sparked and will revisit his interactions with key figures, both Black and white, of the twentieth century.