Trained in Classical languages (Latin and Greek), Philosophy, Sociology and History, both in the US and Europe, W. E. B. Du Bois’s intellectual inquiry into the nature of Blackness covers a wide range of disciplines, from History to Political Philosophy, from Sociology to Literature and Poetry, from Art Criticism to Musicology. The colloquium will embrace this multiplicity of approaches which characterizes Du Bois’s work and, at the same time, capture the profound unity of his thought which can be found in the analysis of the “concept of race.” Special attention will also be given to the determinant role played by W. E. B. Du Bois in the transatlantic circulation of knowledge and intellectual commerce between the US, Europe and Africa.

Argumentaire

Trained in Classical languages (Latin and Greek), Philosophy, Sociology and History, both in the US and Europe, W. E. B. Du Bois’s intellectual inquiry into the nature of Blackness covers a wide range of disciplines, from History to Political Philosophy, from Sociology to Literature and Poetry, from Art Criticism to Musicology. The colloquium will embrace this multiplicity of approaches which characterizes Du Bois’s work and, at the same time, capture the profound unity of his thought which can be found in the analysis of the “concept of race.” Special attention will also be given to the determinant role played by W. E. B. Du Bois in the transatlantic circulation of knowledge and intellectual commerce between the US, Europe and Africa.

Each of the seven sessions of the colloquium will be dedicated to the study of one dimension of the “concept of race” in Du Bois’s prolific and protean body of work:

• Session 1 W. E. B. Du Bois and the Struggle for Justice: Anticolonialism - Pan-Africanism – Civil Rights
• Session 2 “The Color Line” and Visual Arts
• Session 3 “The Concept of Race” in Philosophy and Literature
• Session 4 Sociology and the Questioning of Race
• Session 5 Anthropology, Philosophy and the Questioning of Race
• Session 6 Black History/ Histories
• Session 7 Jazz and “Double Consciousness”
• Session 8 W. E. B. Du Bois in the 21^st Century (Panel discussion 1: Blacks in France and the US: A Comparative Perspective; Panel discussion 2: In and Out: Music between Worlds) 

Thursday, October 17th, 2019

Session 1 W. E. B. Du Bois and the Struggle for Justice

Chair: Aldon Morris (Northwestern University)

 9:30 - 10:00 am: Michael Dawson, University of Chicago 

Race, Capitalism and W. E. B. Du Bois’s Struggle for Justice in the Atlantic World

10:00 - 10:30 am: Magali Bessone, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

W. E. B. Du Bois and epistemic Justice

10:30 - 10:45 am: Q&A 

10:45 - 11:00 am: Coffee

11:00 - 11:30 am: Sakiko Nakao (CESSMA), Université de Paris

The making of Pan-African consciousness in the aftermath of the World War I. Connecting perceptions of Africa: W. E. B. Du Bois, J. E. Casely-Hayford and B. Diagne

11:30 - 12:00 pm: Alioune Fall, Université de Bordeaux

On W. E. B. Du Bois and the Return of Pan-Africanism

12:00 - 12:30 pm: Q&A

Session 2 “The Color Line” and Visual Arts

Chair: Marie-Jeanne Rossignol (Université Paris Diderot)

2:00 - 2:30 pm: Elvan Zabunyan, Université Rennes 2 

Du Bois's Data Visualization, an Avant-Garde 'Geometric Abstraction' to face Slavery and Racial Discrimination

2:30 - 3:00 pm: Daniel Soutif, Art critic

TBA

3:00 - 3:15 pm: Q&A

3:15 - 3:30 pm: Coffee

Session 3 The “Concept of Race” in Philosophy and Literature

Chair: Sarah Fila-Bakabadio (Université de Cergy-Pontoise)

3:00 - 3:30 pm: Anthony Mangeon, Université de Strasbourg

Was Du Bois Wrong on "Race"? Reading his Works through Alain Locke and Kwame Anthony Appiah

3:30 - 4:00 pm: Kaneesha Parsard, University of Chicago

The Stories We Tell About Emancipation: Literary Criticism and W. E. B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction in America

4:00 - 4:15 pm: Q&A

4:15 - 4:45 pm: Cécile Coquet-Mokoko, Université de Versailles-Saint Quentin

W. E. B. Du Bois and the « Racial Mountain » of Essentialism 

4:45 - 5:15 pm: Joyce Bazile and Sophie Rachmuhl, Université Bordeaux-Montaigne

W. E. B. Du Bois in School Children’s Readers in Saint Lucia 

5:15 - 5:30 pm: Q&A

Friday October 18, 2019 

Session 4 Sociology and the Questioning of Race

Chair: Henri Peretz (Senior Fellow at Yale University) 

9:30 - 10:00 am: Aldon Morris, Northwestern University

The Du Boisian Sociology and the Sociological Canon

10:00 - 10:30 am: Stéphane Dufoix, Université Paris Nanterre

Canon Hesitant. Du Bois’s Place in Sociology

10:30 - 11:00 am: Elijah Anderson, Yale University

The Enduring American Color Line

 11:00 - 11:15 am: Q&A

 11:15 - 11:30: Coffee

 Session 5: Anthropology, Philosophy and the Questioning of Race

 Chair: Sophie Rachmuhl (Université Bordeaux Montaigne)

 11:30 - 12:00 pm: Camille Joseph, Université Paris VIII Vincennes-Saint Denis

 W. E. B. Du Bois and Physical Anthropology

12:00 - 12:30 pm: Matthieu Renault, Université Paris VIII Vincennes-Saint Denis

Deracializing Knowledge: Ethics and Politics of Truth in Du Bois

12:30 - 12:45 pm: Q&A

Session 6: Black History/ Histories

Chair: Claire Parfait (Université Paris 13, Villetaneuse-Bobigny-Saint Denis) 

2:15 - 2:30 pm: Claire Parfait, Université Paris 13, Villetaneuse-Bobigny-Saint Denis

Presentation of the project “Writing History from the Margins: an Anthology of African American Historians, 1855-1965”

2:30 - 3:00 pm: Marie-Jeanne Rossignol, Université Paris Diderot

Du Bois and His Intellectual Forbears: Black Founder Richard Allen

3:00 - 3:30 pm: Chad Williams, Brandeis University

 W. E. B. Du Bois and The Wounded World: Reckoning with the History and Memory of World War I

 3:30 - 4:00 pm: Sarah Fila-Bakabadio, Université de Cergy-Pontoise

 The Future in Retrospect: Imagining Africa’s Becoming from W. E. B. Du Bois to Felwine Sarr

 4:00 - 4:30 pm: Q&A

Saturday October 19, 2019

Session 7 : Jazz and “Double Consciousness”

Chair: Alexandre Pierrepont (Université Paris Diderot)

10:00 - 10:30 am: Travis Jackson, University of Chicago

(Mis)Hearing the Sorrow Songs

10:30 - 11:00 am: Howard Sandifer, Chicago West Community Music Center Director and Founder

On James Reese Europe and W. E. B. Du Bois

11:00 - 11:30 am: Xavier Daverat, Université de Bordeaux

Jazz and Panafricanism

11:30 - 12:00 : Q&A

Session 8: W. E. B. Du Bois in the 21^st Century

/!\ location: Théâtre de la Ville de Paris (Espace Cardin)

2:00 pm - 4:30 pm

Panel Discussion 1: Blacks in France and the US: A Comparative Perspective

• Pap Ndiaye (Sciences Po Paris); Michael Dawson (University of Chicago); Elijah Anderson (Yale University); moderator: Nicolas Martin Breteau (Université de Lille)

Panel Discussion 2: In and Out: Music between Worlds

• Nicole Mitchell (University of Pittsburg); Mwata Bowden (University of Chicago); Dana Hall (De Paul University); Douglas Ewart (Art Institute of Chicago); moderator: Alexandre Pierrepont (Université Paris Diderot)