The Global Du Bois

The Global Du Bois brings together a series of data visualizations that challenge the long-held belief that W.E.B. Du Bois’s investment in decolonization is a later move in his intellectual trajectory. Data visualizations will offer researchers the opportunity to explore several data sets: Du Bois’s correspondence, indicating the global span of his interlocutors over the course of his life; Du Bois’s travels, demonstrating his remarkable carbon footprint; citations of his novels, offering strategic insight into how narratives of the global nature of Du Bois’s work have developed; and a multimedia digital edition of Du Bois’s novel Dark Princess (1928).

Status as of 2024

• I’ve worked with Dartmouth students Felix Davis and Helen Deng to develop a map of Du Bois’s travels, with the generous support of Steven Gaughan and Research Computing at Dartmouth. We’re adding more data and details about Du Bois’s voyages to the nearly 500 locations on the map. Check out our map-in-progress, and be sure to click on the clock under the search bar on the left to enable time layers and time-based animation.
• I’m currently working with Dartmouth student Zihan Zhang to develop visualizations of citations to Du Bois’s novels. We’ve created data sets with the citations and are ready to start analyzing and visualizing the citation data.
• I’ve worked with Dartmouth students Kaija Celestin and Fiona Stawarz and am currently working with Pumho Karimi to develop the multimedia digital edition of Dark Princess.