The African Centre for the Study of the United States, University of Pretoria (ACSUS UP) invites you to a Public Lecture:
W.E.B. Dubois, Race, Sociology and Modernity: An entangled history, what are the lessons?
presented by Professor Oyeronke Oyewumi, Professor of Sociology, Africana and Gender Studies, Stony Brook University, New York.
Date: Tuesday, 25 April 2023
Time: 15:00 – 16:30
Venue: Merensky Library Auditorium, Hatfield Campus
RSVP: Ms Lerato Dube: Administrator, ACSUS-UP, +27 12 420 2034, Email: [email protected]

To paraphrase Dubois’ most famous line: the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of racism. The sociologist’s pioneering role as founder of the discipline would not be recognized until the first decade of the twenty-first century. It is a story about racial exclusion and other disparities in the Eurocentric narrations of the making of modernity. Aldon Morris, Dubois’ intellectual biographer, exposed how European disciplinary founding fathers, and their United States acolytes omitted key determinants of modernity such as slavery, white supremacy, and colonization from their accounts of world history. In contrast, by centering the neglected factors, Dubois developed a rigorous, and more analytically advanced account of the social world that has stood the test of time. Within this context, the goal of this lecture is to shine a light on this remarkable origin story and achievement, identify contemporary lessons, and the way forward in the face of persistent inequalities in higher education. Prof Oyewumi will bring her vast knowledge and decades of experience as a notable sociologist of Africa in the United States Academy to bear in answering questions about whether the belated recognition of Dubois’ role in the formation of the discipline will open space for the study of Africa since the continent was important in his intellectual evolution. For example, is there any real place for Africa in the current delineation of disciplines in our efforts to confront the coloniality of being and knowledge?