Du Bois Lectures - Humboldt Universität

The W.E.B. Du Bois Lectures showcase transformative scholarship by inviting scholars to lecture on crucial aspects of public culture and critique today.

The lectures are named in honor of William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868 to 1963) an important and influential intellectual, scholar, public figure, and writer of 20th century America. After doing graduate work at Harvard University, he was a doctoral student at Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität (now Humboldt-Universität) from 1892 to 1894. In Berlin he studied with Gustav von Schmöller, Adolf Wagne

r, Heinrich von Treitschke, and Max Weber. The first African American ever to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1895, he was subsequently professor of economics and history at Atlanta University from 1897 to 1910 and became widely known for his numerous historical and analytical studies of the social, economic, political, and cultural status of black people in the United States. In his famous book The Souls of Black Folk (1903), which combined political essays, cultural critique, autobiographical sketches, and fiction, Du Bois elaborated his notion of the inescapable "double-consciousness" that characterizes the lives of black Americans and his vision of the crucial role racial conflicts were to play all over the world in the new century: "The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line." He was a co-founder of the racially integrated civil rights organization National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and organized several Pan-African Congresses (from 1919 to 1945) which addressed the problems of imperialism and decolonization in a worldwide context. As editor of The Crisis, the journal of the NAACP, from 1910 to 1934, and of Phylon, from 1940 to 1944, Du Bois created a forum for black American literature, cultural and political debate, and social thought that situated African Americans in the wider frame of a revised notion of a multicultural democratic society in the United States and its interrelations with other parts of a postcolonial world. In 1958/59, he received an honorary doctorate from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He emigrated to Ghana in 1961 where he edited the Encyclopedia Africana. Du Bois died in Ghana in 1963.

01/06/2026

EVENT CANCELED.
Unfortunately, we have had to cancel the next lecture.

The next and final lecture for this term already takes place next week! For all W.E.B. Du Bois enthusiasts, come and listen to Renato Xavier's (Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut Berlin) talk:

“Berlin as Intellectual Laboratory: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Making of Black Radical International Theory (1892-1925)”

June 09, 2026
06:15-07:45 p.m.
Unter den Linden 6, room 2249a

08/05/2026

Our next lecture is already around the corner. Come join us and Ewan Kirkland (University of the Creative Arts, UK) for a talk on “Videogames and the Gothic"!
May 12, 2026
Unser den Linden 6, room 3059
06:15-07:45 p.m.

W.E.B. Du Bois Lectures Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Department of English and American Studies | Research | Conferences, Workshops and Lecture Series | W.E.B. Du Bois Lectures W.E.B. Du Bois Lectures Subscribe to the Du Bois Lectures Newsletter - Current lecture program The W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture Series in American C...

22/04/2026

Our program for this summer is out! Join us on April 28 for the first lecture:

Johanna Pitetti-Heil (Universität zu Köln)
“‘The Roaring of Nature, The Taming of Nature: Essentialism and Racialization in American Modern Dance”
Unter den Linden 6, room 2249a
06:15-07:45 pm

02/02/2026

Join us for the final W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture this winter. On February 10, Laura Bieger (Ruhr-Universität Bochum) will speak about “Archive and Genre as Infrastructure.” More details cam be found on our homepage: https://www.angl.hu-berlin.de/research/conferences/dubois-lectures

Date: Feb.10, 2026
Time: 6:15-7:45 p.m.
Place: HU Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, room 2249a

06/01/2026

Happy new year everybody!
Join us for the next lecture on January 13, 2026. Our guest is Crystal Parikh (New York University) and the title of her talk is: “Bona Fides: Racial Worldmaking in Refugee Literature.”

Where? Unter den Linden 6, room 2249a
When? Jan. 13, 6:15-7:45 pm

Everyone is welcome!

22/10/2025

Join us for the first lecture this winter! Our guest is Kylie Crane (Universität Rostock) and she will be presenting on: “‘Domesticated Decomposition’: Fermentation and Other Matters of Culture.”

28 October 2025
6:15–7:45 p.m.
Unter den Linden 6, room 1066e

For more, see:

14/10/2025

This semester's program is out! Come join us for four exciting talks this fall and winter.

10/06/2025

Everybody is invited to the final W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture Series event on Tuesday, June 17, 2025.
Our speaker, Alexandra Hartmann (Paderborn University) will be speaking about: “Listen! — The Aural in Anti-Lynching Activism and Writing.”
Time: 6:15-7:45 pm
Place: Unter den Linden 6, room 3059

20/05/2025

Join us on May 27 for the next lecture this Summer!

Florian Sedlmeier (University of Hamburg):
“Genres and Environments: W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches (1903)”

HU Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, Room 2070a
6:15–7:45 p.m.

14/04/2025

Welcome Summer 2025! Check out the program for this semester's W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture Series; everybody is welcome!

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