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St. Clair Drake was responsible for a major shift in the way urban sociologists studied cities. While educated by Chicago school scholars in sociology and anthropology, such as Robert Park and Ernest Burgess, Drake was one of many Black doctoral students who veered from the dominant perspective of his White teachers on race. His skills in ethnographic research were indebted not only to Park and Burgess, but also to the work of Black scholars who came before him, such as W. E. B. Du Bois and E. Franklin Frazier. His unique personal approach to cities and their racial problems transitioned into a more global focus on the Black diaspora, colonialism and the history of African people, and cultures which connected him to a world of social action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This critical review proposes that Lacan’s concept of alienation has little relevance to Marx’s notion of estrangement of labor and in fact depoliticizes it. Proceeding from a position that is not unsympathetic to poststructuralist theory, the author finds fault with Lacanian structuralism and particularly enlisting the help of Durkheim in attempting to enrich Marx’s psychology. While the author credits professors Worrell and Krier for attempting to take their critique of Marx to a more contemporary theoretical level, one which can potentially have value, he nevertheless sees the use of Lacan and Durkheim to rescue Marx as inappropriate, problematic, and a rejection of Marx’s humanistic understanding of human relations as well as an unsupported dismissal of his notion of alienation based on human and material commodification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]