Event Information
Modern Language Association
San Francisco, CA
Panel: “Conditions of Exile in the Nineteenth Century and Beyond”
Sponsored by the Margaret Fuller Society
Date & Time: Saturday, 7 January 2023 at 12:00–1:15pm
Location: 3024 Moscone West
San Francisco, CA
Panel: “Conditions of Exile in the Nineteenth Century and Beyond”
Sponsored by the Margaret Fuller Society
Date & Time: Saturday, 7 January 2023 at 12:00–1:15pm
Location: 3024 Moscone West
Paper: “Du Bois in Berlin, Du Bois in Atlanta: The Affect of Exile in The Souls of Black Folk”
For accessibility, I have uploaded a PDF copy and EPUB of my paper.
Abstract
My paper examines W. E. B. Du Bois’s early writing through its layers of multi-directional exile. Du Bois lived in Germany for two years and unsuccessfully applied for funding to stay longer. He also famously moved to Ghana very late in his life. However, he also described many of his other life experiences in terms of exile: as a Northerner living in the South, as a Black man in the United States and especially at Harvard, and even in his studies as an aspiring philosopher- turned-sociologist. I focus on the essays later collected in The Souls of Black Folk as moments of successful navigation of the affect of exile—just as he returned from Berlin and took up a position in Atlanta, he blends German literary and philosophical influences with quintessential African musical culture to create highly communicable prose. I argue that Du Bois does not simply reveal international influences, but rather he writes from within the tradition of the German aphorism (Aphorismus), especially within his passage on “double-consciousness.” His unique vision as an African American returning from Germany thus allows him to see how African spiritual traditions co-create “American culture” alongside the white “other world.”
Abstract
My paper examines W. E. B. Du Bois’s early writing through its layers of multi-directional exile. Du Bois lived in Germany for two years and unsuccessfully applied for funding to stay longer. He also famously moved to Ghana very late in his life. However, he also described many of his other life experiences in terms of exile: as a Northerner living in the South, as a Black man in the United States and especially at Harvard, and even in his studies as an aspiring philosopher- turned-sociologist. I focus on the essays later collected in The Souls of Black Folk as moments of successful navigation of the affect of exile—just as he returned from Berlin and took up a position in Atlanta, he blends German literary and philosophical influences with quintessential African musical culture to create highly communicable prose. I argue that Du Bois does not simply reveal international influences, but rather he writes from within the tradition of the German aphorism (Aphorismus), especially within his passage on “double-consciousness.” His unique vision as an African American returning from Germany thus allows him to see how African spiritual traditions co-create “American culture” alongside the white “other world.”
ORCID: 0000-0001-6918-6702