Frantz Fanon: Political Phenomenology of Embodiment

In this lecture, I address three interrelated aspects:

1. I explore how Fanon both continued and transformed the cultural and poetic concerns of his Martinican mentor and high school teacher, Aimé Césaire, particularly regarding Négritude by developing them on a scrutinized bodily and psychoanalytic level. Drawing on Peau noire, masques blancs (1952) and a selection of posthumously published texts in Écrits sur l’aliénation et la liberté, Tome 2, I show how Fanon’s particular point of departure constitutes a major milestone in the emergence of what is now often called critical phenomenology.
2. I try to show how Fanon expands the analysis of individual bodily experience to encompass the collective, intersubjective dimension of embodiment, both in pain and liberation. The discussion focuses primarily on Les Damnés de la terre (1961) but also draws on unpublished texts such as « Le syndrome nord-africain ».
3. In the final, brief section, I outline a very general historical overview of Fanon’s reception in North Africa and West Asia and offer a glimpse into his continuing relevance in contemporary philosophy.

The talk is part of a double lecture together with Justin Daniel’s presentation Fanon at Home, Fanon Abroad: The Paradox of Reception in Martinique in the lecture series “Transatlantic Resonances: Philosophical Entanglements between Africa and the Americas”.