The Possible Form of an Interlocution: Possible Form of an Interlocution, the

In The Possible Form of an Interlocution, Nahum Dimitri Chandler provides an epistemological and theoretical elaboration of the correspondence between W. E. B. Du Bois and Max Weber in 1904 and 1905. Their interlocution took place under the heading of Du Bois’s famous formulation ＂the problem of the color line.＂ This study takes as its incipient reference Weber’s statement to Du Bois that ＂I am absolutely convinced that the ’color-line’ problem will be the paramount problem of the time to come, here and everywhere in the world.＂ Chandler provides a concise statement of Du Bois’s thought of ＂the problem of the color line＂ as a general formulation for understanding African American matters within modern historicity on a worldwide scale. He then examines Weber’s earliest writings to understand in just what way ＂the ’color-line’ problem＂, served as a problematization for Weber in both his thought and itinerary, across the 1890s and through the time of their interlocution.

Nahum Dimitri Chandler is Professor in the School of Humanities at the University of California, Irvine, and author of Annotations: On the Early Thought of W. E. B. Du Bois and ＂Beyond This Narrow Now＂ Or, Delimitations, of W. E. B. Du Bois, both also published by Duke University Press.