Dark Voices: W. E. B. Du Bois and American Thought, 1888-1903University of Chicago Press, 1995 - 294 pages Dark Voices is the first sustained examination of the intellectual formation of W. E. B. Du Bois, tracing the scholar and civil rights leader's thought from his undergraduate days in the 1880s to the 1903 publication of his masterpiece, The Souls of Black Folk, and offering a new reading of his work from this period. Bringing to light materials from the Du Bois archives that have not been discussed before, Shamoon Zamir explores Du Bois's deep engagement with American and European philosophy and social science. He examines the impact on Du Bois of his studies at Harvard with William James and George Santayana, and shows how the experience of post-Reconstruction racism moved Du Bois from metaphysical speculation to the more instrumentalist knowledge of history and the new discipline of sociology, as well as toward the very different kind of understanding embodied in the literary imagination. Providing a new and detailed reading of The Souls of Black Folk in comparison with Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind, Zamir challenges accounts that place Du Bois alongside Emerson and James, or characterize him as a Hegelian idealist. This reading also explores Du Bois's relationship to African American folk culture, and shows how Du Bois was able to dramatize the collapse of many of his hopes for racial justice and liberation. The first book to place The Souls of Black Folk in its intellectual context, Dark Voices is a case study of African American literary development in relation to the broader currents of European and American thought. |
Contents
Race and Multiplicity An Introduction | 1 |
From the South to the Seventh Ward | 21 |
Great Men Great Laws and the Fourth Dimension The Crisis of Hero System and Nation | 23 |
Traveling in Time | 25 |
The Accommodation of William James | 32 |
Satire and Historicism | 46 |
Representing Civilization | 60 |
Local Knowledge in the Shadow of Liberty Science Society and Legitimacy | 68 |
The Contradiction of Double Aims and The Talented Tenth | 133 |
James Santayana Emerson | 153 |
A Prosody of Those Dark Voices The Transformation of Consciousness | 169 |
Using an Unusable Past | 173 |
Voices from the Caverns and the Guardians of the Folk | 178 |
The Senses of Prophetic Imagination | 192 |
Toward Revolution | 199 |
Conclusion | 207 |
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Common terms and phrases
action Adams African African-American alignment American Social Science argues autobiography Bois's Carlyle chapter of Souls civilization commentary course critical critique Crummell culture Dewey dialectical discussion double-consciousness dramatization Du Bois's Dusk of Dawn economic Emerson Eshu essay experience fact Fanon Fisk Fourth Dimension freedom George Santayana German Harvard Hegel Hegelian Henry historicism human Ibid idea ideal idealist ideology individual intellectual James's laws literary logic Louis Marx metaphysical mind moral narrative nation nature negation neo-Kantian nineteenth century notes offers Phenomenology Philadelphia Negro philosophy political positivist pragmatism problem psychology race racism radical reading relationship Renaissance of Ethics Royce Santayana Schmoller scientific self-consciousness sense slave slavery society sociology Sorrow Songs spirituals Strivings struggle Talented Tenth teleology theory thesis thought tion tradition trans transcendence transformation understanding unhappy consciousness University Press Vacation Unique veil W. E. B. Du Bois William James William Torrey Harris writes York