April 23, 2013 from 6.30 - 8.30 pm, Room 9204/9205
Frantz Fanon’s work is so significant to us today because it
continues to give us an entirely different philosophical perspective on the
ethical and political significance of a new way of being human together. Fanon
both rejects traditional European narratives of why humans are unique and
deserving of dignity and those anti- or post-humanists who argue that we are
already beyond the human, either through evolution or in a political and
ethical sense. To put it simply: the colonial situation is one of systematic dehumanization.
The human, however, is not a set of attributes, whether real or ideal. Instead,
what it means to be human together in a world beyond the terrifying brutalities
of colonialism is only to be found in the revolutionary struggle itself.”
(Drucilla Cornell)
Discussants: David Harvey, Peter Hitchcock, and Kyoo Lee
DRUCILLA CORNELL is Professor of Political Science, Women's
Studies and Comparative Literature at Rutgers University. Prior to beginning
her life as an academic, Cornell was a union organizer for a number of years.
She worked for the UAW, the UE, and the IUE in California, New Jersey, and New
York. She is the author of Defending Ideals: War, Democracy, and Political
Struggles (2004) andMoral Images of Freedom: A Future for Critical Theory (2007),
among other books
