Framing Du Bois as an Existentialist

Discussion of the first chapter of W.E.B. Du Bois' Souls of Black Folk, framing his work in that chapter as an existential characterization of and response to Black subjectivity in an antiblack world. In particular, I am interested in how we understand critical concepts like "the veil," "double consciousness," and "the color line" emerge from the everyday lived-experience of Black embodied presence to the world - living as the hyphen in "African-American." Du Bois deploys a series of anecdotes that move away from autobiography and toward a full accounting for the structure of Black subjectivity and being as alienated, resistant, and full of beleaguered but also resilient forms of self-assertion. This roots his thinking in existentialist insight and thinking.