Double Consciousness and Despair: Exploring a Connection Between Søren Kierkegaard and W.E.B. Du Bois

Abstract This paper explores the connection between Søren Kierkegaard’s concept of despair and W.E.B. Du Bois’ concept of double consciousness. The concepts have been separately argued to share a root in Hegel’s “Unhappy Consciousness,” and further, each notion in part explains the interaction of a person with their culture. The paper seeks to highlight the importance of culture in interpreting Kierkegaard’s despair, and to do so by including a critique via Du Bois that a person’s existence in a culture of oppression potentially impacts one’s relation to oneself, whether that person is the oppressor or the oppressed.