The Souls of White Folk: African American Writers Theorize Whiteness is the first study to consider the substantial body of African American writing that critiques whiteness as social construction and racial identity. Arguing against the prevailing approach to these texts that says African American writers retreated from issues of “race” when they wrote about whiteness, Veronica T. Watson instead identifies this body of literature as an African American intellectual and literary tradition that she names “the literature of white estrangement.” In chapters that theorize white double consciousness (W. E. B. Du Bois and Charles W. Chesnutt), white womanhood and class identity (Zora Neale Hurston and Frank Yerby), and the socio-spatial subjectivity of southern whites during the civil rights era (Melba Patillo Beals), Watson explores the historically situated theories and analyses of whiteness provided by the literature of white estrangement from the late-nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries. She argues that these texts are best understood as part of a multipronged approach by African American writers to challenge and dismantle white supremacy in the United States and demonstrates that these texts have an important place in the growing field of critical whiteness studies.

“Fierce and refreshing.”— Carlos Lozada, Washington Post Named a notable book of the year by the New York Times Book Review and the Washington Post, and one of the best books of the year by Spectator and Publishers Weekly, The Souls of Yellow Folk is the powerful debut from one of the most acclaimed essayists of his generation. Wesley Yang writes about race and sex without the polite lies that bore us all.

W. E. B. Du Bois and The Souls of Black Folk

'Courageous and daring, this work documents the reality that political solidarity, forged in struggle, can exist across difference.' bell hooks

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- CONTENTS -- Acknowledgments -- The Forethought -- 1 How I Became White While Punching de Tar Baby -- 2 We Learned the Wrong Things and Went Underground -- 3 We Use Racial Others ... -- 4 ... And Hope and Stumble -- The Afterthought -- Methodological Appendix -- References -- Index.

The Souls of Black Folk is a classic work of American literature by W. E. B. Du Bois. It is a seminal work in the history of sociology, and a cornerstone of African-American literary history. To develop this groundbreaking work, Du Bois drew from his own experiences as an African-American in the American society. Outside of its notable relevance in African-American history, The Souls of Black Folk also holds an important place in social science as one of the early works in the field of sociology.