AFST 33149 - African Americans in U.S. Society and the World: Thinking With W.E.B. DuBois

Institution:

University of Notre Dame

Subject:

Africana Studies

Description:

How might thinking of the African American increase our understanding of U.S. society's diversity and its relation to the modern world? If such a task could be addressed by looking at the work of one thinker, who would it be? This course offers writer and philosopher W.E.B DuBois as one avenue to answering these questions. Not only did DuBois predict that the problem of the twentieth century would be the "problem of the color line," and study for his PhD at the University of Berlin and Harvard University in the 1890s. Not only did he found the NAACP and gained the respect of thinkers and activists like Martin Luther King and Albert Einstein. W.E.B. DuBois was also a prolific writer of philosophy, fiction, correspondence, editorials, novels, and lectures, resulting in a 70-year career and over 175,000 pages of published and unpublished writings. This course will only read (and, in some cases, view or listen to) some of the key moments in DuBois's intellectual career, primarily Souls of Black Folk, John Brown, Dark Princess, selections from Black Reconstruction and Darkwater. We will examine how he reconfigured philosophical concepts, literary genres and tropes in specific contexts to think in innovative ways about African Americans and our modern world in general. We will also contextualize DuBois in relation to national and international figures in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Ultimately, we will consider how his ideas can inform critical thinking about the present. Grades will consist of class participation and writing assignments based on particular themes that encountered in DuBois's thought.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Seminar

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.nd.edu

Phone Number:

(574) 631-5000

Regional Accreditation:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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