Brent Hayes Edwards and Adam discuss the ‘ur-text of Black political philosophy’, W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk. Spanning autobiography, history, biography, fiction, music criticism and political science, its fourteen essays set the tone for black literature, political debate and scholarly production for the course of the twentieth century. Souls was an immediate bestseller, the subject of furious debate and a foundational work in the new field of sociology.Subscribe to Close Readings:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsBrent Hayes Edwards is a scholar of African-American and Francophone literature and of jazz studies at Columbia University.Get in touch: [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.