The Sociology Of W E B Du Bois

The first comprehensive understanding of Du Bois for social scientists The Sociology of W. E. B. Du Bois provides a comprehensive introduction to the founding father of American sociological thought. Du Bois is now recognized as a pioneer of American scientific sociology and as someone who made foundational contributions to the sociology of race and to urban and community sociology. However, in this authoritative volume, noted scholars José Itzigsohn and Karida L. Brown provide a groundbreaking account of Du Bois’s theoretical contribution to sociology, or what they call the analysis of “racialized modernity.” Further, they examine the implications of developing a Du Boisian sociology for the practice of the discipline today. The full canon of Du Bois’s sociological works spans a lifetime of over ninety years in which his ideas evolved over much of the twentieth century. This broader and more systematic account of Du Bois’s contribution to sociology explores how his theories changed, evolved, and even developed to contradict earlier ideas. Careful parsing of seminal works provides a much needed overview for students and scholars looking to gain a better grasp of the ideas of Du Bois, in particular his understanding of racialized subjectivity, racialized social systems, and his scientific sociology. Further, the authors show that a Du Boisian sociology provides a robust analytical framework for the multilevel examination of individual-level processes—such as the formation of the self—and macro processes—such as group formation and mobilization or the structures of modernity—key concepts for a basic understanding of sociology.

This book offers an original and rounded examination of the origin and sociological contributions of one of the most significant, yet continuously ignored, programs of social science research ever established in the United States: the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory. Under the leadership of W.E.B. Du Bois, this unit at Atlanta University made extensive contributions to the discipline which, as the author demonstrates, extend beyond 'race studies' to include founding the first American school of sociology, establishing the first program of urban sociological research, conducting the first sociological study on religion in the United States, and developing methodological advances that remain in use today. However, all of these accomplishments have subsequently been attributed, erroneously, to White sociologists at predominately White institutions, while the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory remains sociologically ignored and marginalized. Placing the achievements of the Du Bois led Atlanta Sociological Laboratory in context, the author contends that American Jim Crow racism and segregation caused the school to become marginalized and ignored instead of becoming recognized as one the most significant early departments of sociology in the United States. Illuminating the sociological activities - and marginalization - of a group of African American scholars from a small African American institution of higher learning in the Deep South - whose works deserve to be canonized alongside those of their late nineteenth and early twentieth century peers - this book will appeal to all scholars with interests in the history of sociology and its development as a discipline, race and ethnicity, research methodology, the sociology of the south, and urban sociology.

In this groundbreaking book, Aldon D. Morris’s ambition is truly monumental: to help rewrite the history of sociology and to acknowledge the primacy of W. E. B. Du Bois’s work in the founding of the discipline. Calling into question the prevailing narrative of how sociology developed, Morris, a major scholar of social movements, probes the way in which the history of the discipline has traditionally given credit to Robert E. Park at the University of Chicago, who worked with the conservative black leader Booker T. Washington to render Du Bois invisible. Morris uncovers the seminal theoretical work of Du Bois in developing a “scientific” sociology through a variety of methodologies and examines how the leading scholars of the day disparaged and ignored Du Bois’s work. The Scholar Denied is based on extensive, rigorous primary source research; the book is the result of a decade of research, writing, and revision. In exposing the economic and political factors that marginalized the contributions of Du Bois and enabled Park and his colleagues to be recognized as the “fathers” of the discipline, Morris delivers a wholly new narrative of American intellectual and social history that places one of America’s key intellectuals, W. E. B. Du Bois, at its center. The Scholar Denied is a must-read for anyone interested in American history, racial inequality, and the academy. In challenging our understanding of the past, the book promises to engender debate and discussion.

Though the word “sociology” was coined in Europe, the field of sociology grew most dramatically in America. Despite that disproportionate influence, American sociology has never been the subject of an extended historical examination. To remedy that situation—and to celebrate the centennial of the American Sociological Association—Craig Calhoun assembled a team of leading sociologists to produce Sociology in America. Rather than a story of great sociologists or departments, Sociology in America is a true history of an often disparate field—and a deeply considered look at the ways sociology developed intellectually and institutionally. It explores the growth of American sociology as it addressed changes and challenges throughout the twentieth century, covering topics ranging from the discipline’s intellectual roots to understandings (and misunderstandings) of race and gender to the impact of the Depression and the 1960s. Sociology in America will stand as the definitive treatment of the contribution of twentieth-century American sociology and will be required reading for all sociologists. Contributors: Andrew Abbott, Daniel Breslau, Craig Calhoun, Charles Camic, Miguel A. Centeno, Patricia Hill Collins, Marjorie L. DeVault, Myra Marx Ferree, Neil Gross, Lorine A. Hughes, Michael D. Kennedy, Shamus Khan, Barbara Laslett, Patricia Lengermann, Doug McAdam, Shauna A. Morimoto, Aldon Morris, Gillian Niebrugge, Alton Phillips, James F. Short Jr., Alan Sica, James T. Sparrow, George Steinmetz, Stephen Turner, Jonathan VanAntwerpen, Immanuel Wallerstein, Pamela Barnhouse Walters, Howard Winant

In this intellectual history-making volume, multiple award-winning W. E. B. Du Bois scholar Reiland Rabaka offers the first book-length treatment of Du Bois's seminal sociological discourse: from Du Bois as inventor of the 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 the sociology of gender and inaugurator of intersectional sociology; 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. Against Epistemic Apartheid brings new and intensive archival research into critical dialogue with the watershed work of classical and contemporary, male and female, black and white, national and international sociologists and critical social theorists' Du Bois studies. Against Epistemic Apartheid offers an accessible introduction to Du Bois's major contributions to sociology and, therefore, will be of interest to scholars and students not only in sociology, but also African American studies, American studies, cultural studies, critical race studies, gender studies, and postcolonial studies, as well as scholars and students in 'traditional' disciplines such as history, philosophy, political science, economics, education, and religion.

The colorful charts, graphs, and maps presented at the 1900 Paris Exposition by famed sociologist and black rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois offered a view into the lives of black Americans, conveying a literal and figurative representation of "the color line." From advances in education to the lingering effects of slavery, these prophetic infographics —beautiful in design and powerful in content—make visible a wide spectrum of black experience. W. E. B. Du Bois's Data Portraits collects the complete set of graphics in full color for the first time, making their insights and innovations available to a contemporary imagination. As Maria Popova wrote, these data portraits shaped how "Du Bois himself thought about sociology, informing the ideas with which he set the world ablaze three years later in The Souls of Black Folk."

W. E. B. Du Bois was a political and literary giant of the 20th century, publishing over twenty books and thousands of essays and articles throughout his life. In The Social Theory of W. E. B. Du Bois, editor Phil Zuckerman assembles Du Bois's work from a wide variety of sources, including articles Du Bois published in newspapers, speeches he delivered, selections from well-known classics such as The Souls of Black Folk and Darkwater, and lesser-known, hard-to-find material written by this revolutionary social theorist. This book offers an excellent introduction to the sociological theory of one of the 20th century's intellectual beacons.

Despite the extensive scholarship on Max Weber (1864-1920) and W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963), very little of it examines the contact between the two founding figures of Western sociology. Drawing on their correspondence from 1904 to 1906, and comparing the sociological work that they produced during this period and afterward, The Spirit vs. the Souls: Max Weber, W. E. B. Du Bois, and the Politics of Scholarship examines for the first time the ideas that Weber and Du Bois shared on topics such as sociological investigation, race, empire, unfree labor, capitalism, and socialism. What emerges from this examination is that their ideas on these matters clashed far more than they converged, contrary to the tone of their letters and to the interpretations of the few scholars who have commented on the correspondence between Weber and Du Bois. Christopher McAuley provides close readings of key texts by the two scholars, including Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk, to demonstrate their different views on a number of issues, including the economic benefits of unfree labor in capitalism. The book addresses the distinctly different treatment of the two figures's political sympathies in past scholarship, especially that which discredits some of Du Bois's openly antiracist academic work while failing to consider the markedly imperialist-serving content of some of Weber's. McAuley argues for the acknowledgment and demarginalization of Du Bois's contributions to the scholarly world that academics have generally accorded to Weber. This book will interest students and scholars of black studies, history, and sociology for whom Du Bois and Weber are central figures.