Another Blogger on Blum

Another blogger has taken up W. E. B. DuBois, American Prophet. I'll be following his more extended reactions, but an initial post takes up the painful question of DuBois's late-life infatuation with Stalin -- an issue Blum confronts in the book, and see his response in the comments section of the blog entry noted above. Hat tip.

Is There a Religious Center/Left? Or, What Would DuBois Do?

Since we're on DuBois week, whom Ed Blum has memorably portrayed as a member of the prophetic religious left, it's a good time to consider whether there is now a religious center/left. I've often asked students that, and given my stock response -- that there probably is, but it's scattered and disorganized and has little influence, as compared to the well-organized and extremely effective religious right. Likely my response is tainted by being here in an evangelical/conservative mecca such as Colorado Springs, but it's also just from observing who has been able to get things done on a national level, and who has not.

Increasingly I'm beginning to think that my stock response is wrong, as evidence of religious center/left organization seem to be cropping up in a number of places -- in evangelical attacks on the religious right by scholars such as Charles Marsh (Wayward Christian Soldiers) and Randall Balmer (Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America: An Evangelical's Lament), in conferences, in political speeches such as that recently given by Barack Obama (speech text is here, while Amy Sullivan gives an astute analysis of it in Slate), in surveys that have documented the disproportionate media attention given to the religious right (see Left Behind: The Skewed Representation of Religion in Major News Media), and in blogs such as Generous Orthodoxy (and many others as well, I'm sure). Younger evangelicals, when polled, express admiration for Bono and concern for global warming.

What would DuBois do? Yes, I know -- which Du Bois? But I'm guessing he would have been heartened; these are the sentiments and the kind of folk who created the NAACP and carried forward racial reform long before anyone had heard of Brown or the Board of Ed. It will be interesting to see who, if anyone, will be able to capitalize politically on this sentiment, or whether this "sentiment" can be organized into a force to be reckoned with. Who will be the Dobson of the religious center/left?

Du Bois: Religious Modernist?

What better way to celebrate July 4th week than to give due attention to one of our great American patriots -- W. E. B. Du Bois. We began with some extended attention to Ed Blum's new work -- see below, the entry for July 3. Today, a contrarian view, from a student of mine, Patrick Butler. In class we read Souls of Black Folk, a chapter from Blum's analysis of Du Bois, and little chunks of other stuff which gave contrasting views of Du Bois. Then I posed this question:

Based on the evidence you see in SBF, how do you interpret Du Bois's relationship to religion? Would you see him as a religious thinker primarily (or secondarily)? What seem to be his views of Christianity? Of other religions? Why does he so frequently invoke the religious category of "Souls"?

One student took issue with Blum's argument, and prepared this interesting journal entry. It raises worthy questions of whether there can be such a thing as a religious modernist. I stand with Blum that there can be, and that Du Bois was one, but Patrick raised some some good questions on this point:

W.E.B. Du Bois employed religious rhetoric throughout his writings, yet scholars have commonly interpreted Du Bois as antireligious. [Some authors] posit that although Du Bois was raised a Christian, in adulthood he altogether abandoned not only Christianity, but religion in general. . . . . Du Bois himself even claimed to not believe in the “Christian god. Bucking historical convention, in his chapter “Violence and the Sacred Imagination of Du Bois,” American Historian Edward J. Blum suggests that Du Bois was in fact religious. Blum explains:"Du Bois had far more respect for Christian and biblical narratives than scholars give him credit. Yet, if the contents of Du Bois’s stories about Jesus in America reveal anything about his one personal faith, it showed that Du Bois was a religious modernist—one who appreciated and endeavored to uphold the social ethics of Christ’s teachings, yet was not beholden to Christian traditions that focused on miracles and an alternate reality for its explanations of the sacred."[2]

Since the Civil War, evangelical white Christians used their religion to validate black subjugation and continued persecution. Blum argues that in response, Du Bois used biblical Christianity to highlight the plight of black Americans. Du Bois emphasized that Jesus was part of a persecuted ethnic minority similar to the situation of black Americans, essentially using the story of Jesus and his teachings as a metaphor for undermining white attempts at Christianizing racism.

While Blum’s argument is compelling, I remain somewhat dubious. The “religious modernist” that ostensibly captures Du Bois’s metaphysical perspective actually obfuscates the question as to his religiosity. As Blum describes it, Du Bois was a religious modernist because he, essentially, used religious metaphors and allusions to critique white America. How, then, does that make Du Bois religious? Using religious language to strengthen an argument does not equate believing that religion was in someway true. I would like to know in Blum’s opinion what constitutes first, a religion, and also religious belief. Souls of Black Folk, in my view, is a clear example of Du Bois’s irreligiosity. Du Bois recognized the power of religion in the lives of most Americans, whether black or white. Thus, it was rhetorically brilliant for Du Bois to use that language to strengthen his arguments. . . . . Du Bois acknowledged that there plausibly could be, not the Christian anthropomorphized god, but a transcendent god-head type of force. This small religious acquiescence, however, seems more like sincere intellectual agnosticism than a spiritual tendency.

UPDATE: Since posting this, another former student from this class sends along the following response and rebuttal -- am I a lucky professor, or what?

Reading the first chapter, Blum's analysis of Du Bois' "Credo" caused me to view "The Conservation of the Races" in a different light. Blum suggests that Du Bois "Credo" references Acts 17:26 when he affirms God created "of one blood all nations" (28). Then in chapter three, Blum suggests Du Bois' The World of Africa echoes his "Credo." He includes the following quote from The World of Africa. "'I dream of aworld of infinite and invaluable variety; not in laws of gravity oratomic weights, but in human variety in height and weight, color andskin, hair and nose and lip. all possible manner of difference, toppedwith freedom of soul to do and be'"(130). One could argue that this quote references the second half of Acts 17:26. Subsequently, one could also argue the Du Bois derived his understanding of race identity from second half of Acts 17:26. In "The Conservation of the Races" Du Bois reconciled that racial differences could coexist with equality because he defined equality as the unrestricted opportunity for all races to develop the talents God desired them to bestow upon their country. He writes: "as a race we must strive by race organization, by race solidarity, by race unity to the realization of that broader humanity which freely recognizesdifferences in men, but sternly deprecates inequality in their opportunities." Indeed, Du Bois refers to African Americans' souls as a means to reinforce divine conception of race identity as well as equality among races with diverse gifts. Perhaps a good way todescribe the relationship between human souls and race identity is touse clay as a metaphor. According to Du Bois, every race possesses the same ball of clay that contains their spiritual potential. How God chooses to mold each race determines racial identity. Given this interpretation, could one not argue that the second half of Acts 17:26 speaks not of a physical constraint, but rather a race's obligation tocomplete their divine purpose on earth or service to their country? Indeed, the first statement of the "Academy Creed" seems to reference the second half of Acts 17:26. It states: "We believe the Negro people, as a race, have a contribution to make to civilization and humanity, which no other race can make." Subsequently, the second statement suggests it is the duty of African Americans to maintain their race identity until "human brotherhood" is accomplished. Thus, could one not argue "The Conservation of the Races" was in part DuBois attempt to reconcile the dual interpretation of Acts 17:26? In short, racial differences did not justify inequality.

Du Bois Redux -- or, Blogging on Blum

Previously I mentioned Ed Blum's new book W. E. B. Du Bois, American Prophet. While just barely off the press, the blogosphere has taken up Ed's work already, with interviews and blogged reflections. One blogger has started a series of reflections on DuBois and religion, based on Ed's book, which he is posting here. Here's a brief excerpt:

Blum’s work uncovers multiple religious selves in Du Bois, and charts the evolution of his relationship to faith, spirituality, and Christianity. Blum canvasses Du Bois’s corpus, and thematically investigates The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois’s sociology of religion, his understanding of Christianity and Communism, the uses of religion in Du Bois’s creative work, and the reception of the spiritual Du Bois.

I look forward to a continuing series of reflections on the book, as well as Ed's interview which should appear on that blog soon. Ed's interview reflections with another blogger also provides significant insight into the kind of scholarly passion which infuses the work. My own review of the book included the following summary:

The manuscript addresses a paradox at the heart of Du Bois’s life that many readers over the years have noted, and many scholars have commented on in various ways, but one that has never to date been satisfactorily explored or
explained – that is, how one may reconcile the side of Du Bois that was a rationalist, an empiricist, a social scientist, and (later in his life) a Communist with the side of Du Bois that produced that deeply soul-searching (in every sense of that term) essays in Souls of Black Folk and Darkwater. Moreover, based on the sheer quantity of spiritual or “religious” writing that DuBois produced – much more so than I was aware of, actually – that paradox appears even more keen and interesting now than it was before. My general understanding of this subject, to the degree I had one, comes from Du Bois’s writings in Souls of Black Folk, when he discusses how the irrational ferocity that he witnessed in the Sam Hose [Wilkes] lynching persuaded him that something beyond social scientific explanations would be required to understand the depth of this inhumanity. But that was, of course, early in Du Bois’s lengthy career, and I’ve never been able to comprehend how the leftward-moving Du Bois could fit his Socialist and, later, Communist views in with the fact that he remained a writer given to spiritual exploration. It just seemed a contradiction. Blum explores, illuminates, and resolves this apparent contradiction, by showing the consistency and depth of Du Bois’s spiritual explorations through his intellectual career, down very nearly to his dying breath, and certainly down to the ways his life was eulogized both in Africa and in America following his death in 1963.

The trope of the “prophet,” or “an American prophet with spiritual insight into cosmic realities,” works beautifully to tie everything together. Finally, Blum effectively employs an expansive definition of “religion,” and of “spiritual writings,” to illuminate Du Bois’s relationship with religion. He demonstrates the inadequacy of previous interpretations that placed Du Bois as areligious, or irreligious, or anti-religious, simply because he was a critic of organized religion. But most of America’s most profound religious thinkers have been critical of organized religion, so because Du Bois had some biting things to say about white churches and segregation, or about jackleg black preachers, hardly qualifies him as anti-religious. Rather, the spirituality that was deeply embedded in his own prose shows him as a prophetic thinker at times, a deliverer of jeremiads, a composer of creeds, an appreciator of the spirituality of everyday folk, and a visionary who anticipated trends in black theology and womanist theology.

Blum is, of course, taking on a dominant view of Du Bois as anti-religious, one that David Levering Lewis enshrined in his magnificient two-part biography. The sociologist Phil Zuckerman is another proponent of this view of Du Bois -- interesting given his worthy work of compilation, Du Bois on Religion (a collection of DuBois's writings on the subject). Du Bois spent the better part of his adult life blasting conventional organized religious institutions, famously refused to pray when called upon to do so in Wilberforce's chapel, expressed secular humanist views on a number of occasions, and was a little cagey on whether he believed in God (sometimes he claimed to be an atheist). The question here is really what is meant by "religion." By a conventional and narrow definition, Du Bois was certainly a- or anti-religious; by a more expansive definition, Blum has convinced me that Du Bois was one of America's most profound religious thinkers.

Oh, and don't forget the DuBois doll -- perfect Christmas present for your little urchin, courtesy of the Unemployed Philosophers' Guild.

Update: since the next few posts will be devoted to DuBois and American religion, be sure to check out the new North Star: Journal of African American Religion, now located at the University of Rochester and edited by Anthea Butler. They're looking for some takers on books that need reviewing.

Dissertation and publishing

A supplement to yesterday's entry on publishing advice: Tim Burke adds some more good stuff here, focused specifically on dissertation writers -- at a stage before most of the suggestions given in the previous post. A little excerpt:

5. Do not be a perfectionist with your dissertation. Write the sucker and
damn the torpedoes. Just make sure it’s good enough for your committee. If you
*can* write it in such a way that it will require little work to make into a
publishable book, do it. For example, make the opening and inevitable
“literature review” as modular as possible and plan to just rip the entire thing
out of the book manuscript. If you embed your review of the relevant scholarship
inside your analysis, that may be more artful for the dissertation, but it’s
more of a pain in the context of the manuscript, unless it’s really artful and
worth keeping even in the book.

6. Submit your dissertation as quickly as you
can for publication. Don’t screw around. Unless it really is a serious mess, or
a hideous, soul-destroying bore, you might as well seek a publisher quickly.
Because if you spend five years revising and revising until it is absolutely
perfect, and then submit it, I promise you that the peer reviewers are going to
demand changes anyway. It could be utter perfection–you could be Jonathan Spence
or Ferdnand Braudel–and peer reviewers are still going to ask for revisions. So
don’t spend too long writing and don’t spend too long revising.

Carnival of Publishing Advice

All this great stuff wasn't around back in the day either, or at least it was passed around more haphazardly-- namely, some excellent pragmatic advice on publishing, for academic authors, on both scholarly and more trade presses, first from Tenured Radical (note all the additional comments at the bottom, from Anthony Grafton and some university press editors), then with some additional thoughts and suggested amendments at the Legal History Blog, and then further supplementary discussion at Sivacracy. Put all these together, adapt to your own particular situation, and you'll have a tremendous wealth of experience to use.

McPherson and the Mormons

Aimee Semple McPherson and the Mormons -- an unlikely combination to be receiving lavish attention lately, both subjects of numerous new books, documentaries, and the like. The PBS documentary on McPherson -- featuring my friend Anthea Butler, a radiant talking head and new editor of The North Star: Journal of African American Religious History, alongside other scholars -- relies heavily on the biographies of McPherson by Edith Blumhofer (Everybody's Sister, an excellent book I reviewed for the Journal of Southern History), and the recent work Matthew Avery Sutton, Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America. Aimee's life (as viewed by Sutton) also gets reviewed by Caleb Crain in the New York Review of Books (subscription required); Crain supplements his article with some further interesting notes on Aimee's life here, and links to recordings of Aimee's voice here. Here locally in Colorado Springs, the rise and fall of Sister Aimee bears many resemblances to that of Ted Haggard of the New Life Church (albeit the "fall" part is more sordid and less amusing than Sister Aimee's). If you have J-STOR access, my review of Blumhofer's biography is here.

The PBS/Frontline four-hour series on Mormon history and culture is linked here; the film makes excellent use of religious/legal history scholars such as Sarah Barringer Gordon and Kathleen Flake and also features a sensitive discussion of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. I'll post more another time about the plethora of excellent recent scholarly literature on the Latter-day Saints.

The theme here is the theatrical and the organizational, or perhaps the charismatic and the bureaucratic. It reminded me of a recent conversation with a relative concerning Fall's Creek Baptist Youth Assembly, the largest religious youth camp in the United States, located in Oklahoma. The music there is no longer reliant on Protestant hymnology, but instead has been converted into praise music bands, the now-standard megachurch style. The same goes for the praise music at the Estes Park YMCA camp where I recently attended a family reunion. Sister Aimee would have loved it.