W. E. B. Du Bois’s universal history in Black Folk Then and Now (1939) (2024)

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Harriet Fertik

Department of Classics, The Ohio State University

,

414 University Hall, 230N. Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210

,

USA

Corresponding author: Harriet Fertik, Department of Classics, The Ohio State University, 414 University Hall, 230N. Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210, USA. fertik.1@osu.edu

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Classical Receptions Journal, clae006, https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/clae006

Published:

12 June 2024

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Abstract

While debates about ‘Eurocentric’ versus ‘Afrocentric’ theories of history have driven previous studies of Du Bois’s writings on ancient Africa, I read his account of African antiquity in Black Folk Then and Now in the context of the moral and educational projects articulated within both Greco-Roman and African American historiography. I pay special attention to conventional ancient views of history that Diodorus expresses in his Bibliotheke, which treats history as a source of morally instructive examples and ‘universal history’ as especially educational because it synthesizes different historical narratives: these concepts of history were broadly influential into the nineteenth century, including among African American writers. An ancient model of universal history allows Du Bois to tell the story of a distinct human community and nevertheless insist on the unity of peoples, a principle which is central to his philosophy of race and of human history writ large.

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