W. E. B. Du Bois is the founding figure of the sociological study of the Black Church. His discussion of the six functions of Philadelphia’s Black Church in The Philadelphia Negro (1899) represented an early example of a “functional analysis” of a religious group. In The Negro Church (1903), he integrated the findings from religious census data, denominational statistics, small area surveys, ethnographic fieldwork, and historical studies to paint a picture of the vibrant role the Black Church played in the African American community. Du Bois discusses the Black Church in three of the essays included in The Souls of Black Folk (1903), other sociological essays and several Atlanta University Conference annual reports. Additionally, Du Bois’ perspective on the Black Church and the role of religion in the African American community can be gleaned from various poetic works, prayers, and editorials. W.E.B. Du Bois and the Sociological Study of the Black Church and Religion, 1897–1914 showcases a representative sample of classic studies on the Black Church and religion by a pioneer of American sociology.

W. E. B. Du Bois: Pioneer American Sociologist highlights the contributions of W. E. B. Du Bois on the field of sociology. Robert A. Wortham shines a light on Du Bois’s role in shaping the scientific scope of the sociological perspective through his pioneering contributions in the areas of demography, urban and rural sociology, Southern Black Belt studies, and religion and society. This book provides a journey through the extensive sociological investigations of one of the key figures in the development of sociology in the United States and globally.

In recent years the philosophy of information has emerged as an important area of research in philosophy. However, until now information’s philosophical history has been largely overlooked. Information and the History of Philosophy is the first comprehensive investigation of the history of philosophical questions around information, including work from before the Common Era to the twenty-first century. It covers scientific and technology-centred notions of information, views of human information processing, as well as socio-political topics such as the control and use of information in societies. Organised into five parts, 19 chapters by an international team of contributors cover the following topics and more: Information before 500 CE, including ancient Chinese, Greek and Roman approaches to information; Early theories of information processing, sources of information and cognition; Information and computation in Leibniz, visualised scientific information, copyright and social reform; The nineteenth century, including biological information, knowledge economies and information’s role in empire and eugenics; Recent and contemporary philosophy of information, including racialised information, Shannon information and the very idea of an information revolution. Information and the History of Philosophy is a landmark publication in this emerging field. As such, it is essential reading for students and researchers in the history of philosophy, philosophy of science and technology, and library and information studies. It is also a valuable resource for those working in subjects such as the history of science, media and communication studies and intellectual history.

An unflinching look at nineteenth- and twentieth-century African American leaders and their visionary legacies. In an accessible, conversational format, Cornel West, with distinguished scholar Christa Buschendorf, provides a fresh perspective on six revolutionary African American leaders: Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King Jr., Ella Baker, Malcolm X, and Ida B. Wells. In dialogue with Buschendorf, West examines the impact of these men and women on their own eras and across the decades. He not only rediscovers the integrity and commitment within these passionate advocates but also their fault lines. West, in these illuminating conversations with the German scholar and thinker Christa Buschendorf, describes Douglass as a complex man who is both “the towering Black freedom fighter of the nineteenth century” and a product of his time who lost sight of the fight for civil rights after the emancipation. He calls Du Bois “undeniably the most important Black intellectual of the twentieth century” and explores the more radical aspects of his thinking in order to understand his uncompromising critique of the United States, which has been omitted from the American collective memory. West argues that our selective memory has sanitized and even “Santaclausified” Martin Luther King Jr., rendering him less radical, and has marginalized Ella Baker, who embodies the grassroots organizing of the civil rights movement. The controversial Malcolm X, who is often seen as a proponent of reverse racism, hatred, and violence, has been demonized in a false opposition with King, while the appeal of his rhetoric and sincerity to students has been sidelined. Ida B. Wells, West argues, shares Malcolm X’s radical spirit and fearless speech, but has “often become the victim of public amnesia.” By providing new insights that humanize all of these well-known figures, in the engrossing dialogue with Buschendorf, and in his insightful introduction and powerful closing essay, Cornel West takes an important step in rekindling the Black prophetic fire.

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.

This book provides a new interpretation of the life of W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the most important African American scholars and thinkers of the 20th century. This revealing biography captures the full life of W.E.B. Du Bois—historian, sociologist, author, editor, and a leader in the fight to bring African Americans more fully into the American landscape as well as a forceful proponent of their leaving America altogether and returning to Africa. Drawing on extensive research and including new primary documents, sidebars, and analysis, Gerald Horne and Charisse Burden-Stelly offer a portrait of this remarkable man, paying special attention to the often-overlooked radical decades at the end of Du Bois's life. The book also highlights Du Bois's relationships with and influence on civil rights activists, intellectuals, and freedom fighters, among them Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, Shirley Graham Du Bois, Louise Thompson Patterson, William Alphaeus Hunton, and Martin Luther King, Jr. The biography includes a selection of primary source documents, including personal letters, speeches, poems, and newspaper articles, that provide insight into Du Bois's life based on his own words and analysis.

Morals and Manners among Negro Americans is the sequel to W.E.B. Du Bois' The Negro Church. This 1914 study is the last Atlanta University Conference volume to be edited or coedited by Du Bois and is based on a national survey addressing the then current state of morals and manners within the African American community. A case study of the Black Church in Atlanta and an extensive discussion of crime are included also. The national survey addressed such topics as good manners, sound morals, habits of cleanliness, personal honesty, home life, rearing of children, activities for young people, the care of the elderly, church ministries, and an evaluation of recent progress. While the original conference volume included actual lists of the evaluators' responses by topic and classified by state, the data were not analyzed. This reissue of the classic sociological study includes an extensive introduction based on Robert Wortham's content analysis of the survey responses. The results of this analysis are presented in tabular form and discussed, and a statistical appendix summarizing the raw data for each topic by state is provided. This new edition presents readers with an opportunity to evaluate general and regional trends in the evaluators' perception of the state of morals and manners within the African American community at the beginning of the twentieth century.

In this intellectual history-making volume, multiple award-winning W. E. B. Du Bois scholar Reiland Rabaka offers the first book-length treatment of Du Bois's seminal sociological discourse: from Du Bois as inventor of the sociology of race to Du Bois as the first sociologist of American religion; from Du Bois as a pioneer of urban and rural sociology to Du Bois as innovator of the sociology of gender and inaugurator of intersectional sociology; and, finally, from Du Bois as groundbreaking sociologist of education and critical criminologist to Du Bois as dialectical critic of the disciplinary decadence of sociology and the American academy. Against Epistemic Apartheid brings new and intensive archival research into critical dialogue with the watershed work of classical and contemporary, male and female, black and white, national and international sociologists and critical social theorists' Du Bois studies. Against Epistemic Apartheid offers an accessible introduction to Du Bois's major contributions to sociology and, therefore, will be of interest to scholars and students not only in sociology, but also African American studies, American studies, cultural studies, critical race studies, gender studies, and postcolonial studies, as well as scholars and students in 'traditional' disciplines such as history, philosophy, political science, economics, education, and religion.

Though the word “sociology” was coined in Europe, the field of sociology grew most dramatically in America. Despite that disproportionate influence, American sociology has never been the subject of an extended historical examination. To remedy that situation—and to celebrate the centennial of the American Sociological Association—Craig Calhoun assembled a team of leading sociologists to produce Sociology in America. Rather than a story of great sociologists or departments, Sociology in America is a true history of an often disparate field—and a deeply considered look at the ways sociology developed intellectually and institutionally. It explores the growth of American sociology as it addressed changes and challenges throughout the twentieth century, covering topics ranging from the discipline’s intellectual roots to understandings (and misunderstandings) of race and gender to the impact of the Depression and the 1960s. Sociology in America will stand as the definitive treatment of the contribution of twentieth-century American sociology and will be required reading for all sociologists. Contributors: Andrew Abbott, Daniel Breslau, Craig Calhoun, Charles Camic, Miguel A. Centeno, Patricia Hill Collins, Marjorie L. DeVault, Myra Marx Ferree, Neil Gross, Lorine A. Hughes, Michael D. Kennedy, Shamus Khan, Barbara Laslett, Patricia Lengermann, Doug McAdam, Shauna A. Morimoto, Aldon Morris, Gillian Niebrugge, Alton Phillips, James F. Short Jr., Alan Sica, James T. Sparrow, George Steinmetz, Stephen Turner, Jonathan VanAntwerpen, Immanuel Wallerstein, Pamela Barnhouse Walters, Howard Winant

The Souls of Black Folk is W.E.B. Du Bois' most famous work. While the work is often viewed as a classic in African American literature and the history of the African American experience, the sociological significance of the work has been understated. In his initial discussions with the book's original publisher, Du Bois desired to prepare a volume that would showcase his ongoing sociological work on "the Negro problems." While many editions of Du Bois' classic text have appeared, no edition has focused primarily on the eight previously published essays in their original form and chronological order. This fact alone makes The Sociological Souls of Black Folk unique. An introductory essay by the volume's editor, Robert Wortham, highlights the sociological significance of the original essays by addressing such themes as the concept of the self, the social construction of the African American experience, and racial inequality. Eight additional essays originally published between 1897 and 1900 are added by the editor in a second section. These additional sociological essays focus on African American entrepreneurship, crime, race relations, liberal arts education, the Black Church's function within the African American community, and the quality of African American life in the Southern Black Belt. The essays included in The Sociological Souls of Black Folk provide the reader with an opportunity to gain a greater appreciation for Du Bois' early sociological work and recognize that Du Bois was indeed one of the pioneering figures in the development of sociology in the United States.