Community Development
Dr. Anthony Monteiro
SCHOLARSHIP
In 2006 I have published or had accepted for publication in academic journals, or as chapters of books nine essays. I will present their content and meaning in terms of my larger scholarly pursuits.
“W.E.B Du Bois’ Black Sociology”, this is an introduction to an anthology of writings by Du Bois to be published in Italy and edited by Professor Raffaele Rauty of the University of Salerno.
“Capitalism’s End Times: A Review of Kevin Phillips’ American Theocracy” appeared in Political Affairs July 2006.
“W.E.B Du Bois and the Sociology of Black Folk” to appear in Perspectives the theoretical journal/newsletter of the American Sociological Association.. Scheduled for the Winter/Spring 2007.
“W.E.B Du Bois and the Study of Black Humanity: A Rediscovery” is scheduled for publication in the Journal of Black Studies for the Winter 2007. This essay is a further development of my research concerning W.E.B Du Bois as a major thinker in the development of the philosophy and methods of the social sciences. It looks at his thinking on the methods of studying race, modernity and in particular the African. I contend to do this he makes what is an epistemic rupture with the epistemological foundations of European social science. I contest the idea the Du Bois was a Eurocentric thinker and argue that he develops an African centered approach to social science. This essay further develops themes in my article “ Being An African in the World: The Du Boisian Epistemology” (The Annals, 2000).
“Race, Empire and the World System” is scheduled for publication in The Black Scholar for the Fall of 2006. This essay builds upon an earlier essay I wrote entitled Race and the Racialized State: A Du Boisian Interrogation (Socialism and Democracy, 2004). In this essay I look at the post 9/11 world from the standpoint of the transformations of the US state towards a militarized, repressive state geared to war and empire. I assert that these transformations in the US state are further evolutions of the racialized state, which emerges with the founding of the US nation and the 3/5 clause to the Constitution.
“Science, Phenomenology and History: Understanding the Multiple Determinations of African Being” is scheduled for publication in the CLR James Journal in the Fall of 2006. This essay examines how historicity and phenomenology intersect in the scientific study of African polymorphism. In linking history to phenomenology I attempt to suggest a way to capture the African as both subject/agent and as historically constituted. My point is to overcome the theoretical problem of essentialism and over determination (the problem of historicism) and the reductionist problem (the problem of existential phenomenology). My claim is that race and the African demand an approach to dynamic polymorphism. This essay builds upon an earlier essay “Time, Space and Race: On Munford’s Race and Civilization” The Black Scholar (2004).
“Race and Revolution: W.E.B Du Bois and the 20th Century” is scheduled for publication in Fall 2006 in The Lincoln Journal of Social and Political Thought. This essay looks at the conjuncture of the Du Boisan concept of the color line as the problem of the 20th century and the revolutions of that century. This essay takes up from Du Bois’ Dusk of Dawn and explores how the concept of race is dynamic and changes as the historical situations change, especially the impact of revolutionary changes in Asia, Africa and Europe. It explicitly conceptualizes Du Bois as a revolutionary thinker in the 20th century.
“The Study and Emancipation of Black Humanity: W.E.B Du Bois’ Life Work” is to appear in the book The African American Experience edited by professor Levi Nwachuku. It asserts that Du Bois linked scholarship to the emancipation of Black humanity. Hence, his scholarship was engaged, political and dynamic. The focus of his work went beyond the confines of the university or the academy. The African American Experience is used primarily in historically black colleges and I seek through this essay to encourage students to consider the possibilities of using social science education as a way to be involved in the struggles of Black people globally.
“The Du Bois Factor in the Reconceptualization of Africa” was published in The Lincoln Journal of Social and Political Thought Winter 2006. This essay insists that Du Bois makes a profoundly transgressive move when he shifts the civilizational foundation of the social science of race to African civilization and away from Europe. I assert that he therefore examines the language, epistemologies and civilizational assumptions of the social sciences and moves them from Eurocentrism and European exclusivity to a human centrism and inclusivity. This essays expands ideas in my essay “Being and African in the World: The Du Boisian Epistemology”.
This scholarship has gone along with several scholarly presentations in the year 2005--2006. I gave eight scholarly presentations. Two at conferences organized by the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Theory (Africana Philosophy in Three Movements and Black Civil Society in American Life: A Conference in Honor of Martin Kilson), one at the 35th Annual Conference of the Association of Black Sociologists (“W.E.B Du Bois’ Unfinished Agenda: Solutions to Domestic and International Racism”). And two at the Caribbean Philosophical Association conference in San Juan Puerto Rico (2005) and Montreal Canada (2006). Lastly, I presented at the Diop conference in October 2006.
CONFERENCE, SEMINARS AND PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS
“W.E.B Du Bois’ Philadelphia in the 21st Century”, Philadelphia Ethical Society, December 17, 2006 (forthcoming)
“The Haitian Revolution: Race, anti-Colonialism and the Modern Black World”, The Haitian Students’ Association, Temple University, November 28, 2006
“Late Stage Hip Hop” Panel at Rutgers University,Newark entitled “The Evolution of Hip Hop” November 6, 2006
“Race, Time and the Du Boisian Episteme”, The Annual Cheik Anta Diop International Conference, October 14, 2006
“Gentrification in North Philadelphia”, presentation for the AKA Sorority at Temple University, September 26, 2006
“Race and Time: A Du Boisian Theory”, The Society for the Study of Africana Philosophy, NYC, September 17,2006
“W.E.B Du Bois and the Radical Reconfiguration of Philosophy” Caribbean Philosophical Association, Montreal Canada, August, 2006
“Martin Luther King, the Struggle for Peace and Africana Theology” Historic Arch Street United Methodist Church, Sunday June 18, 2006
“And Who Made America the Policeman of the Whole World”: Martin Luther King’s Legacy of Peace and Social Justice, African American Historical and Cultural Museum, Philadelphia , PA, Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration, January, 18, 2006
A Tribute to Rosa Parks, Temple University, Event to Commerorate the Life and Work of Rosa Parks, November 10, 2005
Martin Kilson: The Scholar Activist and the Du Boisian Legacy, Conference on Black Civil Society in American Life: A Conference in Honor of Martin Kilson Jr, organized by The Institute for the Study of Race and Social Theory, Temple University ,September 22, 2005
The Africana Roots of Du Boisian Sociology, 35th Annual Conference of the Association of Black Sociologist, Philadelphia PA, August 15, 2005
Science, History and Phenomenology: Understanding the Multiple Determination of Polymorphous African Being, conference on Changing the Geography of Reason, organized by The Caribbean Philosophical Association, San Juan Puerto Rico, June 1—4, 2005
Philosophy, Science and Ideology: Towards a New Synthesis, conference on Recent Africana Philosophy in Three Movements, organized by ISRST, Temple University, April 7—8, 2005
W.E.B Du Bois and Ambiguity in European Modernity, conference organized by the Intellectual Heritage Program at Temple University entitled, Modernity and Ambiguity, September, 2003
W.E.B DU BOIS LECTURES AT THE AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM IN PHILADELPHIA
This is a series of lectures organized at the African American Museum of Philadelphia. It is titled The W.E.B Du Bois and the Black Future Lecture Series. It was begun in the Spring of 2006 and continued into the Fall. This is both a part of my wider scholarly work and service to the larger Philadelphia community. Attendance at the lectures bring together professors, intellectuals and community people. The lecture titles are as follows:
Spring 2006 “The Souls of Black folk and the Struggle for Black Identity”, April 7, 2006 “Black Reconstruction in America and the Fight for Reparations”, May 11, 2006 “Africa and Humanity’s Future”, June 2, 2006
Fall 2006
“Race and Time: W.E.B Du Bois, Frantz Fanon and Toni Morrison”, October 13, 2006
“Existentialism and the Black proletariat: Richard Wright’s Philosophical Fiction”, October 26, 2006
“The Harlem Renaissance: Black Magic and Beyond”, November 3, 2006
“The African Renaissance: Oil and American Empire”, November 17, 2006
These scholarly activities are connected in their effort to contribute to the development of the discussion within the discursive space called African American Studies. As a sociologist specializing in the sociology of knowledge, the philosophy of science and social theory I attempt to contribute social theory and sociology of knowledge methods to the development of the field. I appropriate Du Bois in specific ways that will bring Du Bois into the discipline, but to bring him as an Africana philosopher and social theorist. Thus to expand his contribution to the field beyond the literary appropriation of his work, most notably the uses of double consciousness.
BOOK PROJECTS
Currently I am working on two active book projects and two future projects. The active projects are W.E.B Du Bois and the Study of black Humanity (Africa World Press), which I hope to complete in 2007. And a volume with Professor Martin Kilson of Harvard University tentatively titled One Hundred Years of black Philadelphia. This is an edited volume with contributions from scholars knowledge in particular areas of black Philadelphia history. The future projects are a volume on Marxism and Race, and an edited volume with Jane and Lewis Gordon on Black Civil Society.
TEACHING
My scholarship provides the intellectual grid for my pedagogy and teaching. In many ways I look upon my students as a primary audience for my scholarship, albeit as it is distilled through lectures and made understandable at their levels of intellectual exposure. I teach a wide array of graduate and undergraduate courses. These range from history, to Dimensions of Racism, Introduction to African American Studies, African American Social and Political Thought and the W.E.B Du Bois seminar for graduate students. Moreover, to the extent that I am an active scholar, engaging a wide range of ideas to that same extent will I be a dynamic and engaging classroom presence.
As an example the Introduction African American Studies course is organized around the seminal thoughts of Du Bois, Alain Locke, Zora Neal Hurston, and Richard Wright. Each looks at the African American from humanistic and non-European categories of thought. Their work lays the foundations for the classes’ discussion and understanding of the Black Arts Movements and modern African American Studies. My work in the history of Black ideas and how they can be interpreted for contemporary scholarship informs how I teach this course and organize student presentations and discussions.
Issues of Afrocentricity, Phenomenology, and Du Boisan thought and Marxism informs my undergraduate and graduate courses on Black Social and Political Thought. My scholarship, which engages these schools of thought, is the intellectual foundation for the courses. From this intellectual standpoint I organize student presentations and papers.
My student evaluations have been good to excellent and many students say my classes have inspired them. I include them for the Spring of 2006 in this packet.
SERVICE
My service to the University and the community emerges from my scholarship and intellectual activity. Moreover, I link my community service to my University service. I am co director of the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Theory and have participated actively in the organizing of conferences, lectures and other events. Most recently I gave visiting scholars from Brazil a tour of the old Seventh Ward where Du Bois did his research for The Philadelphia Negro. This was important because their work is in race generally, but E.Franklin Frazier and Melville Herskowitz’s work on the Black family in Brazil The tour and discussion of the Seventh Ward and the examination of the geography and ethnography of the research helped to illuminate for them issues Frazier and Herskowitz had been debating in the US and Brazil. The sociologist and social theorist Paget Henry is using Philadelphia as part of his research to show that Du Bois must be considered one of the classical sociological thinkers. I use my knowledge of the sociology of Black Philadelphia to help Henry make his case. In so doing I think I make a contribution to North Philadelphia through helping to shed light on its history and current problems and as a service to scholarship on modern African Americans, sociology and North Philadelphia. ISRST is an institutional base for this.
I have been a part of two significant events this past year having to do with the civil rights movement and Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. In November I helped organize and spoke at one of the University’s tributes to Rosa Parks. In January 2006 I was principal speaker at the Martin Luther King commemoration at the African American Historical and Cultural Museum. The King Day event was co sponsored by the Graduate Students’ Union of DAAS.
As to community service I will be giving a series of lectures at the African American Historical and Cultural Museum this Spring entitled W.E.B Du Bois and the Black Future. I hope this will begin collaboration with the Museum for future lectures, workshops and symposia.