Intensive Course: The Color Line and the Law: Reading W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk (LAW778H1S)

Note: The add/drop date for this course is Monday, January 8 at 10:00 PM.

Course Location: Please see the "Intensive Course Schedule" under Schedules and Timetables (http://www.law.utoronto.ca/academic-programs/schedules).

Note: Attendance at intensive courses is mandatory for the duration of the course.

W.E.B. Du Bois died the night before the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Roy Wilkins announced Du Bois’s death at the March, reflecting: “at the dawn of the twentieth century his was the voice that was calling to you to gather here today in this cause. If you want to read something that applies to 1963 go back and get a volume of The Souls of Black Folk by Du Bois, published in 1903.” Just over 60 years after the March on Washington and 120 years after its publication, the ideas and arguments of The Souls of Black Folk are still as relevant as ever for examining race, racism, and the requirements of justice.

The Souls of Black Folks is a work at the crossroads of many disciplines, including philosophy, literature, sociology, history, political theory, and, as we will discuss, the law. The book treats such themes as racialization and racial ideology, white supremacy, equality, civic and political rights, the role of education in racial justice, and the way that law can reinforce or undermine each of these. Over the course of this seminar, we will reconstruct and extend Du Bois’s arguments by reading them alongside historical and contemporary texts from philosophy and law. Our aims will be (i) to understand Du Bois’s account of what justice requires under conditions of marked racial inequality, and (ii) to study Du Bois as a legal scholar—that is, to think about his distinctive contributions to our understanding of the law.