The Oxford W. E. B. Du Bois Reader

Abstract

The Oxford W.E.B. Bois Reader. Ed. Eric J. Sundquist. New York: Oxford UP, 1996. 680 pages. $26.95 paper. quality of reader or anthology can be determined largely by how teachable it makes subject that it documents and how accurately it outlines parameters of that subject, The Oxford W.E.B. Bois Reader, edited by Eric Sundquist, is exemplary. Despite his almost unchallenged prominence as intellectual patriarch of African American cultural and history and his self-conscious desire to write history of African American culture, Bois has always been somewhat difficult figure to integrate into literature and cultural studies courses. Much of this difficulty has stemmed from sheer range of his accomplishments and interests. As Sundquist points out, Du Bois wrote alternately and equally well as sociologist, an economist, political scientist, an educator, an artist, and civil rights advocate, and more often than not, several of these intellectual roles were combined in any given speech or essay. The generic singularity of Bois's two major literary works, The Souls of Black Folk, often considered ur-text of African American modernity, and brilliant and under-appreciated Darkwater, text that Sundquist accurately sees as anticipating as well as instigating modern Pan-Africanism and culture of anticolonialism that has come to play such prominent role in Western (or anti-Western) literature of late twentieth century, has also contributed to under-reading of Bois's work. Both of these texts are included in their entirety in this reader and their juxtaposition makes clear value of reading them in relation to each other, If The Souls of Black Folk became century's most important statement of African American resistance to segregation, Darkwater joined battle for black civil rights in United States to broader campaign against European colonial rule abroad, especially in Africa. Placed under five broad headings (Concepts of Race, Representative Men, Literature and Art, Politics, Economics, and Education, and Africa and Colonialism), other essays that Sundquist has collected provide an exhaustive documentation of Bois's intellectual and ideological development. They effectively cover practically entire range of his non-literary writings. In its entirety reader's representation of Bois's constant engagement with current events and arguments, offers political history of diasporically self-conscious Blackness as experienced by man whose narrated life begins during presidency of Andrew and ends just short of presidency of Lyndon Johnson and whose roles were, among others, those of a historian, sociologist, teacher, cofounder of National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), magazine editor, novelist, governmental envoy, Pan-Africanist, spokesman for socialism, and an opponent of anticommunism. The one significant problem with Sundquist's choice of texts is that critical selections on Literature and Art are scanty and finally unsatisfying. Sundquist may have felt that because the great bulk of Bois's writing ... is devoted to politics, economics, and education and his critical writings on literature are ones most readily available elsewhere, this de-emphasizing of Bois was necessary. …