@inbook{ad17956195c746ab9282ecd9fc6c30a7,
title = "W.E.B. Du Bois{\textquoteright}s Neurological Modernity: I.Q., Afropessimism, Genre",
abstract = "This essay considers the African-American scholar and activist W.E.B. Du Bois's surprising response to the development of the I.Q. version of mind in the 20th century - a eugenic discourse well understood at the time as a tool for reasserting white supremacy. The argument draws on the emergent discourse of {"}Afropessimism{"} to show how I.Q. functions as a specific metric through which to consider Progressive Era black literature and culture's positionally in relation to a normative regime of white supremacy re-instantiated by 20th century science. It suggests that rather than seeking {"}transcendence{"} or an {"}outside{"} to white science Du Bois's work engages with I.Q. to perform an immanent critique from {"}within the veil{"}. Finally, the essay considers how this dynamic informs Du Bois's short story {"}The Comet{"} (1920). ",
author = "Michael Collins",
year = "2020",
month = dec,
day = "1",
language = "English",
series = "Palgrave Handbooks of Literature and Science",
publisher = "Palgrave Macmillan US",
editor = "Priscilla Wald",
booktitle = "The Palgrave Handbook of Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century Literature and Science",
}