W.E.B. Du Bois and the Problems of the Twenty-First Century

An Essay on Africana Critical Theory

By (author) Reiland Rabaka

Publication date:

03 February 2007

Length of book:

296 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

Dimensions:

235x160mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9780739116821

W. E. B. Du Bois and the Problems of the Twenty-First Century utilizes Du Bois's thought and texts to develop an informed critical theory of contemporary society. This book broadens the base of critical theory, making it more multicultural, transethnic, transgender, and non-Western European philosophy focused by placing it in dialogue with theory and phenomena that had been heretofore woefully neglected. Taking the preeminent black intellectual of the twentieth century as his primary point of departure, Reiland Rabaka identifies and analyzes several key contributions that Du Bois and the black racial tradition offer to those interested in redeveloping and racially revising contemporary critical social theory. With chapters on critical race theory, postcolonial theory, feminism, and Marxism, this volume builds bridges from Africana Studies to disparate discursive communities, accessibly demonstrating Du Bois's, and the black radical tradition's, contributions to, and the potential impact on, a wide-range of new social scientific research and radical political struggles.
Reiland Rabaka is a young, engaged intellectual to be contended with, one with a distinctive cast of mind. His passionate and well-read take on Du Bois will provoke heated debates and fruitful reconsiderations of this towering figure; his conception of 'Africana Critical Theory' will provoke much needed reconsiderations of theoretical tools forged and put to work to produce understandings and emancipatory reconstructions of the life-worlds and life-world situations of peoples African and of African descent. He must be read, and read closely and carefully.