The Scholar Denied: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology

by Aldon Morris

Overview

In this groundbreaking book, Aldon D. Morris’s ambition is truly monumental: to help rewrite the history of sociology and to acknowledge the primacy of W. E. B. Du Bois’s work in the founding of the discipline. Calling into question the prevailing narrative of how sociology developed, Morris, a major scholar of social movements, probes the way in which the history of the discipline has traditionally given credit to Robert E. Park at the University of Chicago, who worked with the conservative black leader Booker T. Washington to render Du Bois invisible. Morris uncovers the seminal theoretical work of Du Bois in developing a “scientific” sociology through a variety of methodologies and examines how the leading scholars of the day disparaged and ignored Du Bois’s work.

The Scholar Denied is based on extensive, rigorous primary source research; the book is the result of a decade of research, writing, and revision. In exposing the economic and political factors that marginalized the contributions of Du Bois and enabled Park and his colleagues to be recognized as the “fathers” of the discipline, Morris delivers a wholly new narrative of American intellectual and social history that places one of America’s key intellectuals, W. E. B. Du Bois, at its center.

The Scholar Denied is a must-read for anyone interested in American history, racial inequality, and the academy. In challenging our understanding of the past, the book promises to engender debate and discussion.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520286764
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	01/17/2017
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	692,703
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Aldon D. Morris is Leon Forrest Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Northwestern University and the author of The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change, among other books.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Race and the Birth of American Sociology

1. The Rise of Scientific Sociology in America
2. Du Bois, Scientific Sociology, and Race
3. The Du Bois–Atlanta School of Sociology
4. The Conservative Alliance of Washington and Park
5. The Sociology of Black America: Park versus Du Bois
6. Max Weber Meets Du Bois
7. Intellectual Schools and the Atlanta School
8. Legacies and Conclusions

Notes
References
Illustration Credits
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Morris’s book The Scholar Denied affords us insight into a historical moment when white audiences—especially within academia—often ignored, rather than sought out, the experiential expertise of black intellectuals. In particular, Morris details how white sociological and public audiences marginalized the scientific contributions of the sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois and other black social scientists working at the historically black Atlanta University in the early 1900s."

Public Books - Matthew Clair

"Morris’s work is a first step in discussing a new school of sociological thought"

American Journal of Sociology

"Dr. Morris' The Scholar Denied is a raucous and, at times, sobering and maddening romp through a segment of intellectual life of the early 20th century that, even to the modern ears of The Diaspora, frequently sounds all too familiar."

Daily Kos - Black Kos

"Groundbreaking."

Northwestern - Hilary Hurd Anyaso

"Aldon Morris takes a huge step forward in The Scholar Denied by placing Du Bois at the center of the sociological canon. . . . Morris should be congratulated for providing us a mandate to both think differently about and conduct more work on the legacy of this brilliant scholar."

Contexts - Alford A. Young

"Magisterial study of WEB Du Bois' impact on sociology"

Sage

"The Scholar Denied should be required reading for students of sociological theory and intellectual history. The book should spur new histories that do more than tack on Du Bois and other marginalized scholars as 'a kind of affirmative action,' but instead give their work its rightful, meaningful place in the canon. . . . While Du Bois’s relationship with academic sociology evolved over his nearly seven-decade career, at the end, his commitment to Truth remained. Morris deserves recognition for reminding us of this aspect of Du Bois’s legacy, insisting that the discipline of sociology come to terms with its own truths."

Los Angeles Review of Books - Monica Bell

05/11/2015
While many people are familiar with W.E.B. Du Bois’s work for civil rights, fewer are aware of his impact on the field of sociology. Northwestern University sociology professor Morris (Origins of the Civil Rights Movement) seeks to remedy that neglect with this fascinating study. He focuses on how Du Bois started one of the country’s first sociology departments at Atlanta University, only to see his contributions to scholarship systematically ignored and erased by scholars, notably Robert E. Park at the University of Chicago, an ally of Du Bois’s intellectual rival, Booker T. Washington. Du Bois contended that “externally imposed social conditions,” not intrinsic inferiority, were the cause of African Americans’ low social status, and that moreover, being part of society, African Americans could not objectively evaluate their own self-worth. Morris’s work bears all the hallmarks of meticulous research, lending credence to its well-presented thesis. This academically oriented text will be intimidating to anyone without a background in Du Bois’s work or in sociology. However, for those readers who do accept the challenge, the rewards will be great and the reading dense but enjoyable. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"An excellent addition to your library . . . Morris has done outstanding work. . . . I like to think that if DuBois were here, he would be proud to see it."

Seattle Book Mama - Donna Davis

"The story of The Scholar Denied is much bigger than a professional insider’s debate about founders; bigger than something that only the History of Sociology Section of the ASA should bother with. It is also bigger than questions about who to include on our syllabi, or what stories we tell of the University of Chicago. It is a wake up call about our own professional doxa. It is a call to be just a little more skeptical about those sociological standpoints that purport universality when are not—and can never be. And it is a call to be just a little more open to those standpoints that get occluded: standpoints which would otherwise lead us to real and valuable insights into the social world, just as did the work of Du Bois. . . . The Scholar Denied is a powerful and persuasive plea to pay attention to those voices that might still be unwittingly relegated to the margins on the grounds of their ostensible particularism or subjectivism. And it is a reminder that the cost of such marginalization is not simply an ethical one, it is an epistemic one. And it is one that sociology cannot afford."

Berkeley Journal of Sociology - Julian Go

"This well-crafted, meticulously researched, and theoretically serious work will command engagement from the disci- pline writ large. . . . The Scholar Denied takes an enormous and sure-footed stride toward righting a great historic wrong."

The Du Bois Review - Lawrence D. Bobo

"This book thus contributes to the sociology of knowledge, including baleful insight into the racist origins of the very discipline itself. . . . Essential."

CHOICE connect

"Provides a fascinating and challenging introduction to one of the towering intellects of the twentieth century, himself a potent proof against the inherent inferiority of African Americans, an assumption he devoted his life to disproving."

WhoWhatWhy - Christopher N. Breiseth

"Groundbreaking . . . A must-read . . . the book promises to engender debate and discussion."

HEPPAS Books - Marshal Zeringue

★ 06/01/2015
Exposing the workings of academic segregation that marginalized pioneering modern theorist and social behaviorist William Edward Burghardt "W.E.B." Du Bois (1863–1963), Morris (sociology, Northwestern Univ.; The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement) challenges the history of sociology's founding and development as a discipline. He opens by investigating the important role of race in the evolution of American sociology and follows with eight chapters tracing Du Bois's insights and methodologies. Mapped out are the expansive boundaries Du Bois established at Atlanta University, where he developed a social scientific school that impressed the likes of German social theorist Max Weber, as it engaged investigations ranging from city to countryside, North and South, examining class, crime, culture, gender, race, and religion. In analyzing Du Bois's marginalization, Morris focuses on profound differences between Du Bois's approaches and those of Robert E. Park's "Chicago school" that came to define and dominate mainstream sociology. Most of all, Morris reveals how the power of political ideology attached to funding doomed Du Bois. VERDICT Morris's provocative exposé of how economic and political power elevates the ideas, images, and intellectuals America publicly embraces. A must-read for anyone interested in American sociology and/or the U.S. marketplace of ideas.—Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe

Library Journal

2015-05-13
A bid to restore a brilliant black scholar to his rightful place in the history of sociology. Morris (Sociology and African American Studies/Northwestern Univ.; The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change, 1984, etc.) contends that the activist and polymath W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) started the first school of scientific sociology at Atlanta University at the turn of the last century. Due to endemic racism in the academic world at that time, the achievements of Du Bois and his followers were "erased from the sociological record," while the distinction of pioneering the field was awarded to Robert Park and the "Chicago school" of sociology, which the author considers much inferior to the work of the Atlanta scholars. Morris cites plentiful examples of jaw-dropping racism from the works of the Chicago school, much of which rested on theories of eugenics and social Darwinism; Du Bois aimed to use his objective sociology to dismantle these pseudoscientific bases of racial oppression. Morris asserts that he "offers, for the first time, a comparison between the Chicago school of sociology and Du Bois's Atlanta school, clearly showing that the latter theorized the novel view that race was a social construct and supported this position with pioneering methodologies and empirical research." The book contains a solid core of information about Du Bois' work, his clashes with Booker T. Washington and supporters of the "Tuskegee Machine," and his systematic exclusion from white-dominated scholarly networks. It is, however, frequently repetitive and sometimes lapses into terminology like "intellectual nonhegemonic school" and the cant of academic political correctness. The author accepts too readily the proposition that racism alone sufficiently explains Du Bois' exclusion from the sunny uplands of academe, without considering the effect that his subject's increasingly radical politics and abrasive personality had on his contemporary reputation. His argument also necessarily requires frequent comparisons with the work of other sociologists, which are of little interest to general readers. Inside baseball for sociologists.

Kirkus Reviews