To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1903 publication of W.E.B. DuBois’s powerful book “The Souls of Black Folk,” the Center for the Humanities and the Afro-American Studies Department are sponsoring a number of lectures, theater, music and dance performances, movies, exhibits, readings, debates and panel discussions this week.
Considered to be one of the most influential and enduring books of the 20th century, DuBois’s book is one of the earliest texts linking broad civil rights to the essence of democracy.
According to the Center for the Humanities, “‘Souls’ presents a dramatic picture of the post-slavery period in America, lyrically described and with a stunning history of the events that followed the Emancipation Proclamation.”
Born Feb. 23, 1868, in Massachusetts, W.E.B DuBois grew to be a leading intellectual of African-American thought. He received a Ph.D. from Harvard and went on to become a scholar, writer, editor and political activist, as well as a co-founder of the NAACP.
“The Souls of Black Folk,” which demands full equality for African Americans, has had a tremendous impact on American society and race relations. It has been credited with founding the academic discipline of African-American studies.
Steven Nadler, UW philosophy professor and director of the Center for the Humanities, explained why DuBois’s work is a prominent book in a variety of academic areas.
“Because of its eloquent and often lyrical literary voice, profound scholarship and social and political urgency, it really was — and is — an extraordinary work that calls attention to the problems of race in America,” Nadler said. “Du Bois was prescient in that he saw how deeply the problem of the color line would affect American society in the 20th century.”
The symposium has drawn many notable professors, lawyers, authors and artists from across the country to speak on DuBois’s impact on gender, politics, the arts and the field of African American studies.
Keynote speakers for the event are Henry Louis Gates Jr., the DuBois Professor of Humanities at Harvard University, and David Levering Lewis, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography “W.E.B. DuBois.” Other participants include such prominent authorities on African-American life as Hazel Carby, Paula Giddings, Marc Anthony Neal, Nell Painter and Arnold Rampersad.
Nellie McKay, professor of Afro-American Studies at UW and co-editor with Gates of the Norton Anthology of African-American Literature, is co-directing the centennial events with Craig Werner, professor of Afro-American studies at UW and author of “A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race & the Soul of America.”
Professor Nadler said the response thus far has been tremendous.
“It is attracting a broad and diverse audience from all over,” Nadler said. “For one week, Madison, Wisconsin, is the center of the world of Afro-American studies.”
