As trajetórias sociais e políticas de Aimé Césaire (1913-2008), Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906 – 2001) e Frantz Fanon (1925 – 1961) e a negritude

por: Danilo de Lima Nunes  

    "Objetiva-se nesse artigo a construção das trajetórias sociais e políticas de três atores sociais que estiveram ligados ao movimento denominado de negritude ou modernidade negra ²: Aimé Césaire (1913 – 2008), Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906 – 2001) e Frantz Fanon (1925 – 1961). Para que essa construção fosse possível, recorremos a alguns artigos, livros e sítios eletrônicos, esforçando-nos em apresentar, então, tais trajetórias de forma conjunta, i.e., não as apresentando aqui de forma separada: primeiro a de Aimé Césaire, seguida pela de Léopod Senghor e encerrando com a de Frantz Fanon. Cremos que essa forma de apresentar as trajetórias sociais e políticas em conjunto permite-nos perceber as aproximações, similaridades e distanciamentos que estas apresentam.

    Além de construir as trajetórias sociais e políticas desses três atores sociais, tentamos compreender o porquê do surgimento desse movimento e seus fatores constituintes. Para isso buscamos trabalhar comparativamente os seus pensamentos quanto à questão do Colonialismo e da luta (ou não) pela independência africana do jugo imperialista europeu. Antes, contudo, apresentamos de forma bastante sintetizada – não nos aprofundando ao tema pois requereria um trabalho à parte para estudá-lo – o que foi o Imperialismo e suas implicações, em especial, para o continente africano.

    Iniciamos, portanto, esse artigo traçando e analisando as trajetórias sociais e políticas de Aimé Césaire, Léopold Senghor e Frantz Fanon, e, em seguida, procurando entender a forma pelo qual o movimento de negritude pôde ser concebido."

NUNES, Danilo de Lima.

Rio de Janeiro: Revista Eletrônica Boletim do TEMPO, Ano 4, Nº28, Rio, 2009 [ISSN 1981-3384]

Artigo completo

Frantz Fanon: Conflicts and Feminisms, by T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting

Frantz Fanon: Conflicts and Feminisms represents a bold examination of previous feminist criticisms of Fanon and argues that Fanon's writings on women and resistance provide the formative kernels of a liberating praxis for women existing under colonial and neocolonial oppression. Fanon's analyses of the Negro and Language, his critique of the novelist Mayotte Capecia, and his views on the condition of Algerian women figure prominently in this study. Sharpley-Whiting skillfully brings together approaches from a broad range of academic fields, including critical race theory, literary and cultural criticism, and psychoanalysis as she assesses the relevance of Fanon's theories of oppression to a feminist politics of resistance.

• Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (December 29, 1997)

ISBN: 9780847686391 

Por uma psicologia social antirracista : Contribuições de Frantz Fanon

Edelu Kawahala e Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar y Soler

Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brasil

Atualmente no Brasil, principalmente por conta do surgimento de políticas públicas com o objetivo de diminuir as desigualdades raciais, as discussões sobre temas relacionados às questões raciais têm ganhado maior visibilidade. Em um país historicamente racista como o nosso, saberes que sustentam o mito da demo- cracia racial1 e a impossibilidade de identificação dos negros por conta da miscigenação seriam os principais argumentos usados para o impedimento da implantação de políticas como o programa de ações afirmativas tanto no ensino superior quanto no funcionalismo público, por exemplo. Por outro lado, surgem também importantes produções que irão intensificar estratégias de reparação das injustiças históricas cometidas até hoje. É diante desse cenário conflituoso que o livro Pele Negra, Más- caras Brancas é reeditado em língua portuguesa, che- gando até nós como um instrumento de combate útil nos desdobramentos contemporâneos que a luta antiracista assume. Quer dizer, mais de que uma exposição teórica, o que Fanon no oferece é um mergulho na realidade das relações raciais do mundo contemporâneo. Seu texto quebra com todos os paradigmas de uma ciência positivista produzida não só no início do século XX, mas também nos dias de hoje. Embora, sua formação seja a psiquiatria, percebe-se ao longo do livro, um interessante diálogo com os estudos antropológicos e sociológicos. Não obstante, Fanon, procura falar tam- bém de um novo lugar epistemológico, na medida em que, propõe uma ruptura com esses saberes tradicionais concentrados no etnocentrismo em favor de uma nova possibilidade analítica que se dirige da periferia para o centro.

Edelu Kawahala é Mestre em Psicologia pela UFSC e atualmente é aluna especial do doutorado em Psicologia pela UFSC. Consultora para projetos de Pedagogia Multirracial na Organização Não Governamental Núcleo de Estudos Negros de Florianópolis/SC. Endereço: Rua Vereador Mário Coelho Pires, no 221. Bl. a, apto. 1302. São José/SC, Brasil. CEP: 88101-280. Email: edelukaw@hotmail.com

Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar y Soler é Bacharel em Psicologia pela UNESC e atualmente é aluno do Mestrado em Psicologia pela UFSC. Email: diazsoler@gmail.com

Como citar:

Kawahala, E. & Vivar y Soler, R. d. (2010). Por uma psi- cologia social antirracista: contribuições de Frantz Fanon. Psicologia & Sociedade, 22(2), 408-410.

Artigo completo

Fanon's Dialectic of Experience, by Ato. Sekyi-Otu

With the flowering of postcolonialism, we return to Frantz Fanon, a leading theorist of the struggle against colonialism. In this thorough reinterpretation of Fanon's texts, Ato Sekyi-Otu ensures that we return to him fully aware of the unsuspected formal complexity and substantive richness of his work. A Caribbean psychiatrist trained in France after World War II and an eloquent observer of the effects of French colonialism on its subjects from Algeria to Indochina, Fanon was a controversial figure--advocating national liberation and resistance to colonial power in his bestsellers, Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth.

But the controversies attending his life--and death, which some ascribed to the CIA--are small in comparison to those surrounding his work. Where admirers and detractors alike have seen his ideas as an incoherent mixture of Existentialism, Marxism, and psychoanalysis, Sekyi-Otu restores order to Fanon's oeuvre by reading it as one dramatic dialectical narrative.Fanon's Dialectic of Experience invites us to see Fanon as a dramatist enacting a movement of experience--the drama of social agents in the colonial context and its aftermath--in a manner idiosyncratically patterned on the narrative structure of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. By recognizing the centrality of experience to Fanon's work, Sekyi-Otu allows us to comprehend this much misunderstood figure within the tradition of political philosophy from Aristotle to Arendt.

Ato Sekyi-Otu is Associate Professor in the Division of Social Science and the Graduate Program in Social and Political Thought at York University, Ontario.

Harvard University Press (June 2009)

Frantz Fanon en el siglo. Sobre ciertas persistencias en el pensamiento latinoamericano

Alejandro De Oto*


Resumen
El llamado giro descolonial propone una reconfiguración de nuestras bibliotecas pero tiene muchos bordes polémicos y núcleos de sentido ciertamente irreductibles. Una clave de análisis es el retorno de textos que parecían confinados a memorias y biografías políticas del pasado, al contexto de las discusiones latinoamericanas y caribeñas actuales. La escritura de Frantz  Fanon es un momento central de ese retorno.  Aquí presentamos las razones que la constituyen en un archivo cultural y político aún abierto para pensar categorías como las de alienación, cultura nacional, liberación, entre otras.

*Alejandro De Oto
 : Enseña Historia de la historiografía y Teorías poscoloniales y descoloniales en la Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia S. J. B., Argentina. Obtuvo su doctorado en el Centro de Estudios de Asia y África de El Colegio de México, ha sido Research Fellow en Brown University y participado del African Series Seminar de University of Cape Town como conferencista, entre otras actividades. Es miembro de distintas asociaciones académicas y ha publicado numerosos artículos de crítica poscolonial, literatura de viaje y ensayos culturales. Es autor de tres libros, El viaje de la escritura. Richard Francis Burton y el Este de África, Representaciones inestables y Frantz Fanon. Política y poética del sujeto poscolonial. Este último recibió en 2005 el premio "Frantz Fanon Prize for Outstanding Book in Caribbean Thought" de la Caribbean Philosophical Association. Su trabajo más reciente fue el libro compilado y editado en coautoría con Walter Mignolo La teoría política en la encrucijada descolonial. En el presente investiga sobre los conceptos de liberación nacional, contingencia e historicidad en la obra de pensadores del Caribe y Latinoamericanos.

 2011  Instituto de Ciencias Humanas, Sociales y Ambientales (INCIHUSA-CRICYT-CONICET)

Unidad de Historiografía e Historia de las Ideas

C. C. 131

(5500) - Mendoza

Tel. (54 261) 428-8797

Fax: (54 261) 420-2196/524-4311

República Argentina

Articulo completo : en linea, en PDF

Fanon: The Postcolonial Imagination, by Nigel Gibson

"Caricatured as a mindless apostle of violence, Fanon emerges in Nigel Gibson's rigorous and subtle analysis as a major humanistic thinker about injustice, a serious critic of nationalism and, for the first time, as an impressively profound philosopher of modern post-colonial politics and culture." Edward W. Said, Columbia University"This definitive interpretation of Fanon brilliantly touches the heart. Gibson presents a compelling and engaging analysis of Fanon's original theory of the racial gaze, of revolution, and of Fanon's complex theory of violence. All the perennial themes of political theory are masterfully presented in this major book. Readers will feel morally civilized after they read it." Teodros Kiros, Harvard University 
"Gibson's prose is elegant and clear and this book is, by far, the best introduction to Fanon's life and work. But it does more than this....The key idea that runs throughout the book is that of the dialectic. Gibson argues that there is an unstable, critical and creative element in the heart of FAnon's thought that seeks to move through apparently irreconcilable contradictions. This kind of analysis is what we would expect from any responsible engagement with Fanon's work and Gibson develops it very well. But he goes further and makes an original and significant contribution by showing that for Fanon this kind of progress requires the development of a fighting culture." Richard Pithouse, Sunday Independent

Frantz Fanon was a French psychiatrist turned Algerian revolutionary of Martinican origin, and one of the most important and controversial thinkers of the postwar period. A veritable "intellect on fire," Fanon was a radical thinker with original theories on race, revolution, violence, identity and agency.

This book is an excellent introduction to the ideas and legacy of Fanon. Gibson explores him as a truly complex character in the context of his time and beyond. He argues that for Fanon, theory has a practical task to help change the world. Thus Fanon's "untidy dialectic," Gibson contends, is a philosophy of liberation that includes cultural and historical issues and visions of a future society. In a profoundly political sense, Gibson asks us to reevaluate Fanon's contribution as a critic of modernity and reassess in a new light notions of consciousness, humanism, and social change.

This is a fascinating study that will interest undergraduates and above in postcolonial studies, literary theory, cultural studies, sociology, politics, and social and political theory, as well as general readers.

Nigel C. Gibson is Director of the Honors Program at Emerson College, Boston, and a research associate in the Department of Africana Studies at Brown University and the Department of Afro-American Studies at Harvard University.

Polity (July 7, 2003)

Fanon and the Crisis of European Man, by Lewis R. Gordon

As the first book to analyze the work of Fanon as an existential-phenomenological of human sciences and liberation philosopher, Gordon deploys Fanon's work to illuminate how the "bad faith" of European science and civilization have philosophically stymied the project of liberation. Fanon's body of work serves as a critique of European science and society, and shows the ways in which the project of "truth" is compromised by Eurocentric artificially narrowed scope of humanity—a circumstance to which he refers as the crisis of European Man. In his examination of the roots of this crisis, Gordon explores the problems of historical salvation and the dynamics of oppression, the motivation behind contemporary European obstruction of the advancement of a racially just world, the forms of anonymity that pervade racist theorizing and contribute to "seen invisibility," and the reasons behind the impossibility of a nonviolent transition from colonialism and neocolonialism to postcolonialism.

Lewis R. Gordon teaches Africana philosophy and contemporary religious thought at Brown University. He is author of Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism (Humanities),Fanon and the Crisis of European Man: An Essay on Philosophy and the Human Sciences (Routledge), and Her Majesty's Other Children: Philosophical Sketches from a Neocolonial Age (Rowman & Littlefield). He is also co-editor ofFanon: A Critical Reader (Blackwell) and Black Texts and Textuality: Constructing and De-Constructing Blackness (Rowman & Littlefield).

Taylor & Francis, Inc. (April 1997)

ISBN: 0415914159

Conférence-débat : la pensée de Frantz Fanon - 16 mars 2011, Paris 19è

Mercredi 16 mars 2011, 19h30 à 22h. Paris (19)

Le temps d’une conférence, un écrivian, un politique, un sociologue, prendront la parole pour évoquer la pensée de Frantz Fanon, essayiste, psychiatre martiniquais.

Frantz Fanon est l’un des fondateurs du courant de pensée tiers-mondiste. Penseur très engagé, il a cherché à analyser les conséquences psychologiques de la colonisation à la fois sur le colon et sur le colonisé. Dans ses livres les plus connus, il analyse le processus de décolonisation sous les angles sociologique, philosophique et psychiatrique mais il a également écrit des articles importants dans sa discipline : la psychiatrie.

Cet analyste de la domination coloniale et combattant de la liberté, est mort il y a cinquante ans, laissant une œuvre originale et puissante, une déconstruction fondatrice de l’idéologie de la domination qui n’a rien perdu de son actualité.

Les débatteurs :

Immanuel Wallerstein, Achille Mbembe, Mireille Fanon Mendès-France et Olivier Besancenot.

ATELIER 3 - 104 
104, rue d’Aubervilliers, 75019 Paris 
[métro : lignes 2, 5, 7 stations Stalingrad (bd de la Villette, sortie n°2) Riquet ou Crimée] 
Contact et renseignement : www.merlemoqueur.fr - 01 40 38 85 65

Rethinking Fanon : The Continuing Dialogue, edited by Nigel Gibson

French West Indian psychoanalyst & social philosopher Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) rejected his French citizenship & became a strong advocate of the Algerian liberation movement in the 1950s. A brilliant scholar who developed the theory that some neuroses are socially generated, Fanon's revolutionary works The Wretched of the Earth, Toward the African Revolution, & Black Skin White Masks founded an African intellectual awakening. The rebirth of Fanonism today in universities & the English speaking world is a testament to his relevance.

Edited by political theorist and African studies professor Nigel C. Gibson, Rethinking Fanon opens with an authoritative biography correcting fallacious assertions about Fanon's life, situating him in Marxism, negritude, Pan-Africanism, and the historical context of postwar decolonization, specifically the Algerian revolution. Section one is highlighted by extended discussions of Marx, Fanon's theories on sophisticated forms of cultural racism, and "true liberation, " as well as his influence on radical movements in the United States and Africa.

Homi Bhabha's "Remembering Fanon" opens section 2, which also contains discussions of the importance of the cultural and literary debates on Fanon by Henry Louis Gates Jr., Edward Said, and Benita Parry. Then Hussein Bulhan's investigation of Fanon's revolutionary psychiatric approaches provides another focal point, as do Bhabha's and Diana Fuss's psychoanalytical discussions of Fanon.

The third section dramatically highlights debates concerning gender and status of women in movements of national liberation and their aftermath. These range from Helie-Lucas's notion of Fanon as one of those who contributed to the "myth of the Algerian woman liberated along with her country" to Sharpley-Whiting'svindication of Fanon as "pro-feminist, " as well as articles by Fuss and Anne McClintock.

The book concludes with essays by Nigel Gibson and Lou Turner that examine new aspects of Fanon's politics and philosophy.

Nigel Gibson is assistant director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University.

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

* Frantz Fanon: Portrait of a Revolutionary Intellectual Emmanuel Hansen 

* Rescuing Fanon from the Critics Tony Martin 

* Frantz Fanon, World Revolutionary Lou Turner & John Alan 

* Fanon as a Democratic Theorist Hussein M. Adam 

* Revolutionary Psychiatry of Fanon Hussein A. Bulhan 

* Remembering Fanon Homi Bhabha 

* Travelling Theory Reconsidered Edward W. Said 

* Resistance Theory Benita Parry 

* Critical Fanonism Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 

* Women, Nationalism & Religion in the Algerian Liberation Struggle Marie-Aimee Helie-Lucas 

* Fanon & Gender Agency Anne McClintock 

* Interior Colonies Diana Fuss 

* Fanon's Feminist Consciousness & Algerian Women's Liberation T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting 

* Fanon & the FLN Lou Turner 

* Inside the Structure of the People Nigel C. Gibson

Prometheus Books, Publishers (1999)

O pensamento anticolonial de Frantz Fanon e a Guerra de Independência da Argélia

Resumo

Este artigo trata sobre o pensamento anticolonial na África e das conjunturas das quais estas teorias surgem, ou seja, refere-se ao processo de descolonização africana, mais precisamente ao argelino. Ao contrário das teses eurocêntricas que afirmam não haver reflexão interna sobre os problemas africanos, existiram vários pensadores que se dedicaram à análise do seu continente, entre eles Frantz Fanon e Albert Memmi.

Walter Günther Rodrigues Lippold

Graduado em História e Especialista em História do Mundo Afro-Asiático pela FAPA. Esse artigo constitui uma síntese da monografia de especialização, orientada pelo Prof. André Reis da Silva.

Monographia, Porto Alegre, n. 1, 2005

Faculdade Porto-Alegrense, Brasil

Artigo completo

Frantz Fanon, l’apôtre de la violence ? par Sami Tchak

"Frantz Fanon fait partie de ces penseurs dont l’œuvre a eu un écho immédiat. Les Damnés de la terre, Peau noire masques blancs, Pour la révolution africaine, L’an V de la révolution algérienne : tous ces textes ont fait de leur auteur l’une des voix majeures de la pensée anticolonialiste, ils ont été lus, commentés, traduits et parfois instrumentalisés en Afrique, en Europe, en Asie et en Amérique. Mais, hors du contexte qui avait favorisé le bon accueil de l’œuvre de Fanon (la deuxième guerre mondiale, la guerre froide, les guerres de libération, etc.), celle-ci avait été d’abord l’objet de critiques parfois sévères avant de tomber dans un relatif oubli. Serait-elle datée au point de ne plus permettre la compréhension de certains phénomènes actuels dans le monde ? Ne peut-on pas repenser la violence à partir de ses écrits, surtout à partir des Damnés de la terre ?

Encore une fois, Fanon

Aujourd’hui, en partie grâce au livre que lui consacre Alice Cherki, le Martiniquais Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) revient dans les débats. L’Unesco lui a même consacré un colloque en décembre 2001. Mais l’on est bien loin de l’engouement qu’avait suscité son œuvre dans les années 60 et 70 en Afrique, aux États-Unis, en Europe occidentale, ou Proche-Orient, au Japon et en Amérique du sud. On est loin de la place que l’auteur avait occupée, une place justifiée d’abord par l’écho de ses livres (Les Damnés de la terre a été vendu à plusieurs centaines de milliers d’exemplaires en français et en anglais), et par l’intérêt que son œuvre avait suscité auprès d’autres intellectuels1. Sans aucun doute, cette œuvre avait-elle bénéficié, comme cela a toujours été le cas de toutes les pensées qui ont marqué plus ou moins une époque, d'un contexte historique favorable. Elle était née à un moment où l’identification claire des bourreaux d’un côté et des victimes de l’autre était une démarche plus que tentante, adoptée à la fois par les porte-parole des colonisés, des « damnés de la terre », et par une partie des intellectuels appartenant au camp des forts, donc des bourreaux. L’on sortait de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale pour entrer dans la guerre froide, mais aussi dans les guerres de décolonisation, une période de grandes ébullitions historiques et sociales, une période de contestations, de revendications, mais aussi de répressions : répression sanglante en Indonésie en 1965 (500 000 morts), assassinat de Patrice Lumumba au Congo, assassinat de Che Guevara en Bolivie, assassinat de Malcom X, de Martin Luther King aux États-Unis, assassinat de Ben Barka...

Cette contextualisation n’enlève rien à la complexité de la pensée de Fanon, elle explique seulement, en partie, l’accueil favorable qu’elle avait eu, en même temps qu’elle permet de comprendre aujourd’hui, plus de quarante ans après la décolonisation de l’Afrique, toutes les réserves et les critiques qu’elle suscite ou l’oubli progressif dont elle est victime."

Revue des littératures du Sud., N° 148. Penser la violence.

Juillet - septembre 2002

Suite de l'article ici (format PDF)

Fanon, par Edouard Glissant (1928-2011)

« L’exemple le plus significatif du Détour reste celui de Frantz Fanon. Immense et enthousiasmant Détour. J’ai rencontré un poète sud-américain qui ne se sépare jamais de sa traduction espagnole des Damnés de la Terre. N’importe quel étudiant noir américain s’émerveille d’apprendre que vous venez du même pays que Fanon. Il arrive que des années passent sans qu’il soit (je ne dis même pas son œuvre) cité dans la presse politique ou culturelle, révolutionnaire ou de gauche, de la Martinique. Une avenue de Fort-de-France porte son nom. C’est à peu près tout.

Il est difficile pour un Antillais d’être le frère, l’ami, ou tout simplement le compagnon ou le « compatriote » de Fanon. Parce que de tous les intellectuels antillais francophones il est le seul à être véritablement passé à l’acte, à travers son adhésion à la cause algérienne ; et cela même si, après les épisodes tragiques et concluants de ce qu’on est en droit d’appeler sa passion algérienne, le problème martiniquais (dont en l’occurrence il n’était pas responsable mais qu’il eut sans doute affronté s’il avait vécu) reste entier dans son ambiguïté. Il est clair qu’ici passer à l’acte ne signifie pas seulement se battre, revendiquer, déployer la parole contestante, mais assumer à fond la coupure radicale. La coupure radicale est la pointe extrême du Détour.

La parole poétique de Césaire, l’acte politique de Fanon nous ont menés quelque part, autorisant par détour que nous revenions au seul lieu où nos problèmes nous guettent. Ce lieu est décrit dans le Cahier aussi bien que dans Peau noire, Masques blancs : je veux dire par là que ni Césaire ni Fanon ne sont des abstracteurs. Les tracés de la Négritude et de la théorie révolutionnaire des Damnés sont pourtant généralisants. Ils suivent le contour historique de la décolonisation finissante dans le monde. Ils illustrent et démontrent le paysage d’un Ailleurs partagé. Il faut revenir au lieu. Le Détour n’est ruse profitable que si le Retour le féconde : non pas retour au rêve d’origine, à l’Un immobile de l’Être, mais retour au point d’intrication, dont on s’était détourné par force ; c’est là qu’il faut mettre en œuvre les composantes de la Relation, ou périr. »

Edouard Glissant (21 septembre 1928- 3 février 2011), Le Discours antillais (1981)

Biographie de l'écrivain sur le site Île en île (The City University of New York) 

Humeur : après l’annonce de sa disparition, ce midi, sur une des principales radios généralistes de son île natale, l’animatrice annonce que « toute l’équipe s’incline devant la mémoire d’Edouard Glissant ». Puis, sans transition, déboule une chanson carnavalesque. La Martinique est maintenant orpheline des 3 géants auxquels elle a donné naissance (Césaire, Fanon, Glissant), mais le carnaval de nous-mêmes continue de rouler. Pa ni pwoblèm…
Vidé... videz... vides... vide...

Forms of Fanonism: Frantz Fanon's Critical Theory and the Dialectics of Decolonization, by Reiland Rabaka

"Rabaka (Africana studies, Univ. of Colorado) asserts that Frantz Fanon's ideas continue to be relevant and inspirational. The introduction appeals for a wider 'transdisciplinary' methodology to Africana critical theory, a veritable shift toward 'epistemic openness,' which he subsequently implements. The author presents five dimensions or 'forms' of Fanonism: 'Anti-racist,' 'Decolonialist,' 'Marxist,' 'Feminist,' and 'Revolutionary Humanist.' Each form is a facet of Fanon's oeuvre. Rabaka critically and exhaustively examines each form, and gives comparative attention to W.E.B. Du Bois, Jean-Paul Sartre, Aimé Césaire, Karl Marx, Amilcar Cabral, and Léopold Sédar Senghor, among others....This is a valuable volume for manifold reasons--notably, its erudite narrative, bold approach, and comprehensive bibliography of English-language works on Fanon and critical theory....Rabaka's work will especially serve specialists and advanced students."—


When Frantz Fanon's critiques of racism, sexism, colonialism, capitalism, and humanism are brought into the ever-widening orbit of Africana critical theory something unprecedented in the annals of Africana intellectual history happens: five distinct forms of Fanonism emerge. Forms of Fanonism: Frantz Fanon's Critical Theory and the Dialectics of Decolonization is discursively distinguished from other engagements of Fanon's thought and texts insofar as it is the first study to consciously examine his contributions to Africana Studies and critical theory or, rather, the Africana tradition of critical theory. Forms of Fanonism identifies and intensely analyzes Fanon's contributions to the deconstruction and reconstruction of Africana Studies, radical politics, and critical social theory.

In highlighting his unique "solutions" to the "problems" of racism, sexism, colonialism, capitalism, and humanism, five distinct forms of Fanonism materialize. These five forms of Fanonism allow contemporary critical theorists to innovatively explore the ways in which his thought and texts can be dialectically put to use in relieving the wretched experience of this generation's wretched of the earth. Critics can also apply these forms to deconstruct and reconstruct Africana Studies, radical politics, and critical social theory using their anti-imperialist interests. Throughout  Forms of Fanonism, Reiland Rabaka critically dialogues with Fanon, incessantly asking his corpus critical questions and seeking from it crucial answers. This book, in short, solemnly keeps with Fanon's own predilection for connecting critical theory to revolutionary praxis by utilizing his thought and texts as paradigms and points of departure to deepen and develop the Africana tradition of critical theory.


About the Author
Reiland Rabaka is associate professor of Africana Studies in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he is also an Affiliate Professor in the Department of Women and Gender Studies and a Research Fellow at the Center for Studies of Ethnicity and Race in America (CSERA). He is the author of W.E.B. Du Bois and the Problems of the Twenty-First Century (2007), Du Bois's Dialectics: Black Radical Politics and the Reconstruction of Critical Social Theory (2008), and Africana Critical Theory: Reconstructing the Black Radical Tradition, from W.E.B. Du Bois and C.L.R. James to Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral (2009), all published by Lexington Books.

Reflexões sobre Biopoder e Pos-Colonialismo : relendo Fanon e Foucault

Resumo

Autores como Michel Foucault e Franz Fanon têm figurado de forma influente tanto em estudos sobre questões relativas a estratégias de poder e representação em contextos pós-coloniais, quanto em debates e análises de ordem teórica sobre pós-colonialismo. Particularmente, as noções de biopoder e governamentalidade, originárias do pensamento de Foucault, e as reflexões de Fanon sobre a construção de formas de subjetivação racializadas e coloniais, têm ensejado um amplo debate sobre a permanência e circulação de retóricas raciais transnacionais. Através da leitura de David Scott, em Refashioning Futures - Criticism after Postcoloniality(1999), e Paul Gilroy, em Against Race - Imagining Political Culture beyond the Color Line (2000), este ensaio procura identificar a pertinência da combinação de ambos os autores em estudos que, de forma distinta, se debruçam sobre a complexa relação entre corpo e modernidade e suas implicações nos campos político e intelectual contemporâneos. 

Olívia Maria Gomes da Cunha é doutora em Antropologia Social pelo PPGAS-MN-UFRJ e professora do Departamento de Antropologia Cultural (UFRJ). É autora de Intenção e Gesto ¾ Pessoa, Cor e a Produção Cotidiana da (In)Diferença no Rio de Janeiro, 1927-1942 (no prelo).

Print version ISSN 0104-9313

Mana vol.8 no.1 Rio de Janeiro Apr. 2002

Doi: 10.1590/S0104-93132002000100006 

Artigo completo

Frantz Fanon did not prescribe violence. He diagnosed it

by David Austin, Toronto, Canada

Extract :

"In a February 2002 National Post column, "Frantz Fanon: A Poisonous Thinker Who Refuses to Die," writer Robert Fulford claimed that "it was Fanon who brought into modern culture the idea that violence can heal the spiritually wounded," and that Fanon "argued that violence was necessary to Third World peoples not just as a way to win their liberty but, even more, because it would cure the inferiority complex that had been created by the teachings of white men."

He also informed us that The Wretched of Earth "went into six editions in Arabic," scandalously insinuating a relationship between Arabness and violence. Fulford is sorely misguided, if not disingenuous. He perpetuates the image of Fanon as an apostle of violence. But to label Fanon as an avatar of violence is as presumptuous as labeling Fulford as a pacifist.

Much of the hullabaloo stems from passages such as the following: "At the level of individuals, violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority complex and from despair and inaction." At a cursory reading, the passage appears to be a promotion of violence as cathartic release. But at a closer read, Fanon's language is very specific. The words "At the level of individuals" are crucial: Fanon is sharing his first-hand observations as a clinical psychiatrist. He was treating Algerian patients who were engaged in a life-and-death struggle against French settlers who had killed, brutalized, and maimed Algerian women and men. For some of them, violence was a cathartic act. Under these conditions, should we be surprised that, in absence of an impartial judiciary, police force, or any other official institutions willing to defend the rights of Algerians, some of them should take matters into their own hands ?"

Complete article 

A recepção de Fanon no Brasil e a identidade negra

Antonio Sérgio Alfredo Guimarães

Professor titular do Departamento de Sociologia da Universidade de São Paulo (USP)

Novos estudios - CEBRAP  no.81 - São Paulo July 2008 

RESUMO

Neste artigo, uso fontes bibliográficas e testemunhos para analisar a recepção de Fanon pelo meio intelectual brasileiro, assim como sua influência sobre a formação de identidades negras. Enquanto observo uma recepção morna, argumento que isso se deveu a três fatores: primeiro, a especificidade da esquerda latino-americana nos anos 1960; em segundo, uma constituição racial e nacional totalmente oposta a conflitos raciais; e, em terceiro, o número reduzido nas universidades brasileiras de professores e pesquisadores negros que abordem a formação da identidade negra ou a afirmação de sujeitos racialmente oprimidos.

Artigo completo aqui (PDF)

Frantz Fanon's thesis of violence: What relevance for modern Africa ?

By: Tongkeh Joseph, June 2008

Introduction

The struggle against oppression was the central thesis of Frantz Fanon's revolutionary philosophy. And colonialism was the target of this fury. Fanon condemned colonialism in the most bitter terms and advocated violence in its most extreme form to confront this plague. In his words, "colonialism is not a thinking machine nor a body endowed with reasoning faculties. It is violence in its most natural state ... and will only yield when confronted with greater violence." This revolutionary outlook is reflected in many of Fanon's works, among which include: Black Skin White Masks, A Dying Colonialism, Toward the African Revolution and The Wretched of the Earth. The latter book, acclaimed as Fanon's most accomplished work, has been described as the "bible of decolonization" because of its radical impact on, and eventual success of the anti-colonial struggle.

Half a century after Fanon's death, his thesis of violence still remains an object of heated debate. This controversy is increasingly fanned by the undying contradictions within postcolonial Africa. Dr. Homi K. Bhabha questioned the relevance of Fanon's radicalism in contemporary Africa. "Is The Wretched of the Earth now only a historical and scholarly artifact?" he asked. Continued he, "In the era of globalization is it a relic of naturalistic struggle? Or do Fanon's insights transcend the particulars of his time? Might they help us make sense of today's political and economic tensions?" Dr. Bhabha's doubts suggest both the climate of tension and uncertainty in Africa on the one hand, and the almost-futile search for solutions to the innumerable problems infecting the continent. All of these calamities always boil down to conflicts of one form or another. Where is Fanon's place in this violence-plagued continent ?

Judged against the background of current upheavals in Africa, one requires a deeper reading and then a second interpretation of Fanon. These twin tasks can only make sense when we strive to understand the climate of Fanon's time and compare it with that of today. Given that Africa alone currently accounts for more than 35% of the world's conflicts, Fanon still has many questions to answer. Firstly, did Fanon in the middle of his rage ever prescribe an end to violence in Africa in the foreseeable future? Secondly, what is the difference between the unabated spiral of violence in Africa and the colonial-type violence? Put in other words, is violence in contemporary Africa a mark of change or is it of continuity? Thirdly, is half a century not time enough for Africa to reconsider its reverence for violence? And consequent upon these questions, is the struggle lost for Africa ?

Complete article 

Frantz Fanon et Edward Saïd

Frantz Fanon, une oeuvre d'actualité

Le colloque organisé par Avenpace Institution sur Frantz Fanon, «Fanon anti-colonial, Fanon post-colonial» a été clôturé jeudi, laissant l'idée marquante que l'oeuvre de Fanon propose une réflexion sur des thèmes qui restent étroitement liés à l'actualité d'aujourd'hui. Edward Saïd, l'intellectuel palestinien, dans son livre «Culture et impérialisme» (1992), souligne très bien ce caractère lorsqu'il dit: «Lire Jane Austen sans lire aussi Fanon et Cabral, c'est couper la culture moderne de ses racines, de ses engagements, de ses attaches...». Edward Saïd a raison de souligner que la modernité de Fanon est de«déformer l'empire de la culture dominante et de son adversaire nationaliste, dans une démarche qui entend regarder au-delà des deux vers la libération», estime Alice Cherki, psychanalyste et auteur de la biographie de référence de Frantz Fanon. Pour Cherki, l'un des thèmes centraux de «Peau noire, masque blanc», premier livre de Fanon, paru en 1952, est le trouble de l'image corporelle sous le regard opaque et rejetant de l'autre. «(...) Le sujet colonisé et racisé est fragilisé dans son devenir, et Fanon dira d'une façon éloquente l'effet de pétrification, de sidération que produit la rencontre avec cette situation», souligne Alice Cherki, avant d'affirmer que ce type de situation que Fanon nous aide à interroger est d'une grande actualité. «Le grand corps malade», comme le clament certains jeunes aujourd'hui (les jeunes de la banlieue issus de l'immigration en France, ndlr).