W.E.B. Du Bois's "The Comet": Race and American Culture

Celebrating Black Heritage

W.E.B. Du Bois is widely regarded as the most influential black intellectual of the twentieth century. This program will survey some of his accomplishments as a leader and an activist, such as his co-founding of the NAACP, his work as editor for national journals like The Crisis, and his landmark book, The Souls of Black Folk (1903). We will then turn our discussion to a long-forgotten science fiction story by Du Bois, "The Comet" (1920), which follows a black man and a white woman who must travel together after an apocalyptic comet has wiped out the population of New York City. We'll discuss how this story captures many of Du Bois's core ideas and why Sci-Fi or "speculative fiction" might still be an ideal genre to help Americans think about race relations today. 

This program is the twelfth in our ongoing "Race and American Culture" series. Click here for a digital copy of the short story or visit any branch for a physical copy.

About Dr. Ian Afflerbach

Dr. Ian Afflerbach is an Assistant Professor of American Literature at the University of North Georgia, where he teaches and researches in 20th century American literature, political history, African-American studies, and the history of ideas. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis, and has lived in Montreal, Vermont, North Carolina, and Germany. His writing has appeared in journals like English Literary History, Modern Fiction Studies, and Studies in the Novel. He was named a 2019 Fellow by the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies in Mainz, Germany.

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