Chapter 3 - Militant Neoclassicism

Summary

“Militant Neoclassicism” argues that W. E. B. Du Bois marshaled post-Kantian aesthetics against the anthropological categories posited by Enlightenment theorists. The chapter departs from the traditional interpretation of Du Bois as a champion of integration, which relies heavily on The Souls of Black Folk at the expense of Du Bois’s later Marxism. This interpretation downplays his controversial advocacy for the self-segregation of African-American communities, which sought to capitalize on intra-group solidarity in order to rectify class conflict. The chapter argues that these collectives, spheres of free action carved out from predominately white social structures, evince the aesthetic autonomy theorized by Friedrich Schiller, whom Du Bois admired and quotes in Souls. Attending to aesthetic autonomy also reveals new connections between Du Bois and cultural anthropology, especially the work of Ruth Benedict, who advanced aesthetic arguments about anthropological communities that distinguished themselves from a dominant social milieu.