Outside History: Du Bois and the 4th Dimension

From the outset of his career, W. E. B. Du Bois experimented with the fourth dimension. That his speculative fiction remains marginal in academic studies reflects a longstanding tendency to discount the aesthetic and political value of popular, pulp genres. However, this talk will show that many of Du Bois’s most consequential ideas emerged from his critical encounter with the fourth-dimension narratives of H. G. Wells, C. H. Hinton, and Edwin Abbott, contemporaries alongside and against whom Du Bois fathomed uncharted depths of experience distorted by, and refracted through, the color line.

All events will take place in the large seminar room downstairs at the Rothermere American Institute. To receive reminders and updates, please join the ALRS mailing list by sending a blank email to alrs-subscribe@maillist.ox.ac.uk.