Democracy and Beauty: The Political Aesthetics of W. E. B. Du Bois

What is beauty, and what is its political function? In what ways might it help undermine white supremacy and cultivate a more democratic political culture? Democracy and Beauty shines a light on W. E. B. Du Bois’s attempts to answer these questions during the decade surrounding the First World War and, in so doing, offers a groundbreaking account of the philosopher’s aesthetics.

Robert Gooding-Williams reconstructs Du Bois’s defense of the political potential of beauty to challenge oppressive systems and foster an inclusive democracy. White supremacy is a powerful force that defies rational revision, Du Bois argued, because it is rooted in the entrenched routines of its adherents. Beauty, however, has a distinctive role to play in the struggle against white supremacy. It can strengthen resolve and ward off despair by showing the oppressed that they can alter their social world, and it can unsettle and even transform the pernicious habits that perpetuate white supremacy. Gooding-Williams also explores Du Bois’s account of the interplay among white supremacy, Christianity, capitalism, and imperialism as well as key tensions in his work. A rich engagement with Du Bois’s philosophy of beauty, this book demonstrates the relevance of his social thought and aesthetics to present-day arguments about Black pessimism, Black optimism, and the aesthetic turn in Black studies.

Robert Gooding-Williams is Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018, and in 2020 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. The Yale Graduate School awarded Gooding-Williams a Wilbur Cross Medal in 2023. His books include Zarathustra’s Dionysian Modernism (2001); Look, a Negro!: Philosophical Essays on Race, Culture, and Politics (2005); and In the Shadow of Du Bois: Afro-Modern Political Thought in America (2009).