Evolution of The Global Du Bois, Phase I (2010-2018)

2010-2013
Laying the Foundations

At Emory, Roopika Risam wrote her dissertation on how W.E.B. Du Bois’s literary writing challenges the prevailing narrative that he turned away from African American equality toward anticolonial movements in his later years.

2014
The Correspondence Dataset Initiated

Risam and Salem State graduate research assistant Shakira Cruz started building a dataset of Du Bois’s correspondence from the W.E.B. Du Bois Papers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, documenting the reach of his global networks.

2015
Correspondence Prototype Developed
Screenshot of prototype of the map of Du Bois's correspondence with pins on locations from where letters were sent to W.E.B. Du Bois

Risam prototyped a map based on the correspondence dataset using Neatline.

2016
Mapping Du Bois's Travels Begins

Risam compiled the first dataset of 215 locations where Du Bois traveled, drawn from archival research in the Du Bois Papers and supplemented by secondary sources.

2017
Citation Analysis Underway
Slide of Records per title per database that shows the number of records for Souls of Black Folk, Quest of the Silver Fleece, Dark Princess, Worlds of Color, and the Black Flame trilogy

Risam started experimenting with bibliometrics to examine the reception of Du Bois’s literary writing. She scraped citation data from scholarly databases to trace how the global dimensions of his work have been suppressed or revived in academic research since publication.

2018
First Travel Dataset Goes Live
Screenshot of In the Same Boats, with pins on locations W.E.B. Du Bois traveled and lines between the pins

Risam's first dataset of Du Bois's travels is used for In the Same Boats, directed by Kaiama Glover and Alex Gil, alongside curated datasets of other Black intellectuals, allowing researchers to identify potential connections in the Afro-Atlantic world. 

Evolution of The Global Du Bois, Phase II (2022-2025)

2022
Dataset Expansion Continues

Students in the Creative and Critical Data Studio, co-led by Roopika Risam and Jacqueline Wernimont in Dartmouth’s Digital Humanities and Social Engagement Cluster, collaborated with Risam to expand the dataset of Du Bois’s travels through archival and secondary source research. The updated dataset includes 700+ locations, dates, and contextual information about Du Bois’s activities where available. Other students developed a dataset of 2,172 compiled and cleaned citations of scholarship on Du Bois’s literary writings for future bibliometric analysis.

2023
Travel Map Built
Screenshot of early version of the map of W.E.B. Du Bois's travels with pins

With support from Stephen Gaughan, GIS Manager at Dartmouth, Risam developed an ArcGIS map visualizing locations from the expanded dataset of Du Bois’s journeys, creating an interactive spatiotemporal tool for understanding his global connections.

2024
Dark Princess Edition in Development
Screenshot of the in-progress edition of Dark Princess. It shows the original cover of Dark Princess, a drawing of a woman with a background of orange, white, pink, and black

Risam began working on a media-enhanced digital edition of Dark Princess (1928), which entered the public domain in 2024. Dartmouth students identified allusions and historical contexts in need of annotations for readers. 

2025
The Global Du Bois 1.0 Released
Logo of a stylized picture of W.E.B. Du Bois in black and white, on a black background, with the words The Global Du Bois in white

The project debuts to the public, offering an interactive map and contextual materials tracing Du Bois's global journeys.

Roadmap for The Global Du Bois, Phase III (2025-2028)

Timeline of future developments for Phase III of The Global Du Bois: 2025: Release travel dataset; 2026: Complete Dark Princess edition; 2027: Develop citation visualizations and enhance correspondence dataset; 2028: Develop correspondence visualizations; Release Global Du Bois 2.0