Classical German Thought in W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk

FAIN: FA-252575-17

Michael Saman
Unaffiliated Independent Scholar (Asheville, NC 28803-2218)

A book-length study of German intellectual influences in W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk.

W.E.B. Du Bois stands as one of the most important American intellectuals of the 20th century, yet his literary frame of reference, his modes of sociological and historical analysis, and his principles of political activism are not limited to English-speaking traditions, but are founded in significant part on ideas of German thinkers of the 18th and 19th centuries. These paradigms provided him an intellectual vantage point outside of American conventions of racial bias, and afforded him the critical distance to think in an original, methodical, and farsighted way about concrete steps toward social change. My book project is a detailed and innovative study of The Souls of Black Folk (1903), using interconnecting readings of selected chapters to bring forth Du Bois’s conceptual and intertextual dialogue with Herder, Goethe, Schiller, Wagner, and Hegel. Without this dimension, our understanding of Du Bois’s social thought and literary practice remains incomplete.

Associated Products

The Voice of Time: Classical German Thought and the Ethics of Progress in W.E.B. Du Bois’s Souls of Black Folk (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: The Voice of Time: Classical German Thought and the Ethics of Progress in W.E.B. Du Bois’s Souls of Black Folk
Abstract: Public lecture on ideas of J.G. Herder and J.W. von Goethe in W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk.
Author: Michael Saman
Date: 02/16/2018
Location: Bard College at Simon's Rock, Great Barrington, MA

The Voice of Time: Classical German Thought and the Ethics of Progress in W.E.B. Du Bois’s Souls of Black Folk (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: The Voice of Time: Classical German Thought and the Ethics of Progress in W.E.B. Du Bois’s Souls of Black Folk
Author: Michael Saman
Abstract: "Wednesday Wisdom" roundtable discussion of German thought in W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk.
Date Range: 02/16/2008
Location: W.E.B. Du Bois Center, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Primary URL: https://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2018/02/umass_great_barrington_celebra.html

The Voice of Time: Classical German Thought and the Ethics of Progress in W.E.B. Du Bois’s Souls of Black Folk (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: The Voice of Time: Classical German Thought and the Ethics of Progress in W.E.B. Du Bois’s Souls of Black Folk
Abstract: Lecture on German thought in W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk.
Author: Michael Saman
Date: 01/30/2018
Location: Montclair State University

Du Bois and Marx, Du Bois and Marxism (Article)
Title: Du Bois and Marx, Du Bois and Marxism
Author: Michael J. Saman
Abstract: W. E. B. Du Bois’s engagement with the thought of Karl Marx forms an important aspect of his intellectual biography, yet its contours crystallize explicitly only late in his written work, and its development prior to the 1930s remains insufficiently understood. In order to bring to light the mix of criticisms, reservations, ideals, and inspirations that shape this reception, this article explores its trajectory as exhaustively as the available documentation permits, beginning from Du Bois’s early training in economics as a university student, continuing through his increasing attention to socialism in the early 1900s and his embrace of Soviet communism in the 1920s, and culminating in the 1930s in his teaching of Marx at Atlanta University and the overtly Marxian positions he adopts in Black Reconstruction (1935).
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X20000089
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Du Bois Review
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

The Movement of Power: W. E. B. Du Bois at the Opera (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: The Movement of Power: W. E. B. Du Bois at the Opera
Abstract: CMLL DISTINGUISHED LECTURER SERIES introduces Dr. Michael Saman, who will present "The Movement of Power: W.E.B. Du Bois at the Opera," (April 16th, 1:00 pm. Webex event). Dr. Michael Saman will be speaking on the way politics and art interact in W.E.B. Du Bois’s short story “Of the Coming of John,” from The Souls of Black Folk, which features music from Wagner’s opera, Lohengrin.
Author: Michael J. Saman
Date: 04/06/2021
Location: Mississippi State university
Primary URL: https://www.cmll.msstate.edu/news-events/cmll-distinguished-lecturer-series/

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