What is beauty, and what is its political function? In what ways might it help undermine white supremacy and cultivate a more democratic political culture? Robert Gooding-Williams’ new book Democracy and Beauty shines a light on W. E. B. Du Bois’ attempts to answer these questions during the decade surrounding the First World War and, in so doing, offers a groundbreaking account of the philosopher’s aesthetics.

In this event, Gooding-Williams will reconstruct Du Bois’ defense of the political potential of beauty to challenge oppressive systems and foster an inclusive democracy. White supremacy is a powerful force that defies rational revision, Du Bois argued, because it is rooted in the entrenched routines of its adherents. Beauty, however, has a distinctive role to play in the struggle against white supremacy. It can strengthen resolve and ward off despair by showing the oppressed that they can alter their social world, and it can unsettle and even transform the pernicious habits that perpetuate white supremacy. Gooding-Williams will also explore Du Bois’ account of the interplay among white supremacy, Christianity, capitalism, and imperialism as well as key tensions in his work.

Robert Gooding-Williams is Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. His area of research includes social and political philosophy, the history of African-American political thought, 19th century European philosophy, existentialism and aesthetics. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018 and received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2020. His last book, Democracy and Beauty: The Political Aesthetics of W. E. B. Dubois is to be published in June by Columbia University Press.

Brandon Terry is Professor of Social Science at Harvard University and the co-director of the Institute on Policing, Incarceration, and Public Safety at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. His forthcoming book The Tragic Vision of the Civil Rights Movement: Political Theory and the Historical Imagination is to be published by Harvard University Press.