Against Epistemic Apartheid

W.E.B. Du Bois and the Disciplinary Decadence of Sociology

By (author) Reiland Rabaka

Publication date:

10 May 2010

Length of book:

440 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

Dimensions:

241x162mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9780739145975

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.
Although the life and work of W.E.B. Du Bois have in recent years begun to receive the attention they are due, Du Bois's radical sociology remains largely unrecognized. Du Bois was not only a founder of the field and a radical practitioner; he was also a thunderous critic of sociology. He saw that the field's complacency in the face of human suffering, its collusion with oppression and its indifference to genocide, deeply undermined sociology's quest to understand social relationships and social structures. Against Epistemic Apartheid vindicates Du Bois as a theorist of an alternative sociology, a field oriented to the darker peoples of the earth, to women, to the urban slum and rural poverty, to the prison and the school. In the spirit of Du Bois, Rabaka questions the integrity of sociology. He understands Du Bois as an engaged scholar who, seeing the ways of power from outside, from the South and the East so to speak, developed an alternative sociology that we very much need today.