Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

When W. E. B. Du Bois introduced the concept of “double consciousness” in his literary and autobiographical masterpiece, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), the idea of doubleness was already a major motif in the literary works of Dostoevsky, Stevenson, Melville, Conrad, Poe, and Goethe. Likewise, the term had been addressed in the psychological and philosophical writings of Nietzsche, Dewey, and James. For both groups, the merger of doubleness and consciousness often suggested an irrational force and the emergence of a dual and split personality entombed in one physical body. The dual and split nature of this consciousness suggested that what was in play was the existence of a “true” and genuine self which could be contrasted to a self which was “false” and inauthentic. Du Bois's use of the term would incorporate many of the psychological and, by reference, sociological assumptions associated with the authors above. A restatement of the salient features of Du Bois's views on double consciousness permits us to focus on both the origins and consequences of this doubleness; such a restatement will also serve as the basis for a reassessment of the clarity of the concept as explicated by Du Bois. In addition, a reassessment permits us to approach the concept from contemporary sociological perspectives in order to focus on its possible utility in the current era. The core of Du Bois's ... log in or subscribe to read full text