{"title":"W. E. B. Du Bois’s universal history in Black Folk Then and Now (1939)","authors":"Harriet Fertik","doi":"10.1093/crj/clae006","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n 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.","PeriodicalId":42730,"journal":{"name":"Classical Receptions Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Classical Receptions Journal","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/clae006","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"CLASSICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
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.