The Oxford Handbook of W. E. B. Du Bois is a work detailing the life and works of the twentieth century scholar and activist, W. E. B. Du Bois. It contains fifty chapters covering the multidimensional life and works of Du Bois. The contributing authors are experts on the topics about Du Bois which they authored. Because Du Bois was a prodigious twentieth century scholar and activist, these chapters delve into the numerous contributions he made in these domains. The Handbook is written in a clear accessible style enabling scholars, students, and the public to understand this complex and controversial historical figure. Du Bois is a fascinating figure because he lived for 95 years and often changed his ideas and activism as he grew over time. Du Bois's scholarship and activism addressed numerous historical developments and major social movements. The Handbook follows these tumultuous times where Du Bois struggled to make sense of the role that race, and racism, played in the development of the modern world. In so doing, this volume excavates the many lessons Du Bois's scholarship and activism hold for the contemporary world.
The Handbook will serve as a guidepost for the emerging Du Boisian scholarship that has developed among scholars and students within and beyond the academy. It will assist in clarifying and enhancing the paradigm shifts Du Bois's work is currently generating in numerous intellectual disciplines and activist circles. The Oxford Handbook of W. E. B. Du Bois will stir needed debates for many years that are crucial for democracy to remain vital and flourishing.
The wide-ranging work of W. E. B. Du Bois, critical to understanding the role that race has played in creating the modern world we find around us, mostly has been ignored or hidden from sociological researchers until after the civil rights movement in the U.S. As a result, one of the key goals of The Oxford Handbook of W. E. B. Du Bois is to reclaim Du Bois from those efforts to marginalize his thought. The chapters of this volume explore, in a comprehensive manner, all aspects of Du Boisian sociology. It is organized into ten thematic sections: Social Theory, Change and Agency; Sociology; Social Science, Humanities, Public Intellectual; Women and Gender Studies; Methodologies and Archival Resources; Black Interiority and Whiteness; Color Line, Empire, Marxism, and War; Talented Tenth, and Black Colleges and Universities; Black Community, Religion, Crime and Wealth; Internationalism, Pan-Africanism, and Anti-Colonialism.
