1st Edition

W.E.B. Du Bois

Edited By Reiland Rabaka Copyright 2010

    Housed in one handy volume for the first time are several of the seminal essays on W.E.B. Du Bois's contributions to sociology and critical social theory: from Du Bois as inventor of sociology of race, to Du Bois as the first sociologist of American religion; from Du Bois as a pioneer of urban and rural sociology, to Du Bois as innovator of sociology of gender and culture; and, finally, from Du Bois as groundbreaking sociologist of education and critical criminologist, to Du Bois as dialectical critic of the disciplinary decadence of sociology and the American academy. What this volume offers that is wholly innovative and distinctive is that it brings together the watershed work of classical and contemporary, male and female, black and white, national and international sociologists and social theorists with the express intent of creating critical inventories and thoroughly interrogating what has been included, and what has been excluded, when we come to W.E.B. Du Bois's contributions to the discipline of sociology. Unlike any other anthologies on Du Bois, this volume offers an excellent overview of the critical commentary on arguably one of the most imaginative and innovative, perceptive and prolific founders of the discipline of sociology. It will therefore be of interest to scholars and students not just in sociology, but also Africana studies, American studies, cultural studies, ethnic studies, gender studies and postcolonial studies, as well as "traditional" disciplines, such as, history, philosophy, political science, economics, education, and religion.

    Contents: Introduction: On Du Bois’s epistemic innovations and sociology’s intellectual amnesia; Part I Du Bois and the Disciplinary Decadence of Sociology: Exploring Issues of Intellectual Historical Amnesia and Epistemic Apartheid: W.E.B. Du Bois: a case study in the sociology of sociological negation, Dan S. Green and Edwin D. Driver; Note on a forgotten Black sociologist: W.E.B. Du Bois and the sociological profession, Elliot Rudwick; W.E.B. Du Bois between worlds: Berlin, empirical social research, and the race question, Barrington S. Edwards; W.E.B. Du Bois and the Atlanta University studies on the negro, Elliot M. Rudwick; W.E.B. Du Bois's and the Atlanta University studies on the negro, revisited, Earl Wright II. Part II Du Bois and the Early Development of Urban and Rural Sociology: The Philadelphia Negro and the Sociology of the Souls of Black Farming Folk: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Atlanta sociological laboratory, Earl Wright II; The early social science of W.E.B. Du Bois, Robert W. Williams; W.E.B. Du Bois' urban sociology: reflections on African American quality of life in Philadelphia, Robert A. Wortham; W.E.B. Du Bois's sociology: The Philadelphia Negro and social science, Tufkufu Zuberi. Part III Du Bois and the Sociology of Race: the Sociology of the Souls of Black and White (Among Other) Folk: A classic from the other side of the veil; Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk, Charles Lemert; The souls of White folk; W.E.B. Du Bois's critique of White supremacy and contributions to critical White studies, Reiland Rabaka; Four Du Boisian contributions to critical race theory, John Shuford; Remembering the gift: W.E.B. Du Bois on the unconscious and economic operations of racism, Shannon Sullivan. Part IV Du Bois and the Sociology of Gender: 'The Damnation of Women' and the Sociology of the Souls of Black Female Folk: Race, class, and gender in the work of W.E.B. Du Bois: an exploratory study, Betsy Lucal; William Edward Burghardt Du Bois and the concepts

    Biography

    Reiland Rabaka is an Associate Professor of Africana Studies in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he is also an Affiliate Professor in the Department of Women and Gender Studies and a Research Fellow at the Center for Studies of Ethnicity and Race in America (CSERA). He is the author of W.E.B. Du Bois and the Problems of the Twenty-First Century (2007), Du Bois's Dialectics: Black Radical Politics and the Reconstruction of Critical Social Theory (2008), Africana Critical Theory: Reconstructing the Black Radical Tradition, from W.E.B. Du Bois and C.L.R. James to Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral (2009), Forms of Fanonism: Frantz Fanon's Critical Theory and the Dialectics of Decolonization (2010), and W.E.B. Du Bois and the Disciplinary Decadence of Sociology: An Essay on Intellectual Amnesia and Epistemic Apartheid (forthcoming).