AFR 405 - Franz Fanon

In many scholarly accounts, Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) was a seminal thinker of decolonization in the 20th century. In an oeuvre brought into print in a nine-year period between 1952-1961, Fanon’s struggle to imagine and bring into language and action de-colonial thinking engaged and transformed major cultural, philosophical, political intellectual currents of his historical time and place including existentialism, Marxism, Negritude, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis. His engagements oriented toward decolonial practice transformed those intellectual currents. In this course, we will read Fanon’s collected works – plays, philosophical and political essays, newspaper articles, and lectures, to inquire into how he problematized the pressing issues of his present. In addition, we will read contemporary thinkers (e.g., Homi Bhabha, Achille Mbembe, Gayatri Spivak, Sylvia Wynter) to consider how they bring Fanon’s mode of problematization and inquiry into the 21st century.
Units: 4
Course Type: Seminar