Creolizing Political Theory: Reading Rousseau through Fanon

by Jane Gordon

Might creolization offer political theory an approach that would better reflect the heterogeneity of political life? After all, it describes mixtures that were not supposed to have emerged in the plantation societies of the Caribbean but did so through their capacity to exemplify living culture, thought, and political practice. Similar processes continue today, when people who once were strangers find themselves unequal co-occupants of new political locations they both seek to call "home."

Caribbean Philosophical Association: Letter from the Present

Happy New Year!

As we enter the eleventh year of the CPA’s existence, there is much to celebrate.

In a period that Doug Ficek described perfectly in Puerto Rico as one of profound practical and theoretical misanthropy or one of an excessively skeptical attitude toward transformative ideas and projects, CPA through the creative and loving labor of a small and now growing community burst onto the scene, forging a refuge, a counter, an alternative.

Theorizing Contemporary Practices of Slavery

Theorizing Contemporary Practices of Slavery, Gordon by Michael Beyer

A Companion to African-American Studies

Edited by Lewis Gordon & Jane Anna Gordon

“An excellent … resource … edited with an excellent introduction by Lewis R. Gordon and Jane Anna Gordon, which includes articles by a wide range of scholars that document the development of black studies in the United States and outline the trajectories of the field in all its multi-genre richness.” (Year's Work in English Studies, November 2008)

“This compilation of essays is a much-needed addition to African-American scholarship. The breadth and range of this collection will make an excellent teaching tool for anyone leading courses in ethnicity, identity, and racial politics. We are in the editors’ debt for bringing together such excellent and important essays.”
–Drucilla Cornell, Rutgers University

Revolutionary in Counter-Revolutionary Times: Elaborating Fanonian National Consciousness into the Twenty-First Century

Jane Anna Gordon, Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy - Revue de la philosophie française et de langue française, Vol XIX, No 1 (2011) pp 37-47

One of the unique challenges of reading Les damnés de la terre (The Wretched of the Earth) today is that while it is an irredeemably revolutionary text, we live in a counter-revolutionary moment or in a global context that has tried very hard to discredit even the possibility of revolution. Fanon’s text does not only narrate the effective undertaking of an anti-colonial struggle—of what is required for people to identify the actual causes of their alienation and unfreedom and together to will their elimination—it also outlines the various, often dialectical challenges of restructuring a society from the bottom up. Guiding and evident in the latter is the flourishing of what Fanon suggestively called national consciousness. Elaborating its meaning and ongoing usefulness is the focus of this essay.

Special Issue of the 'Journal of French & Francophone Philosophy' on 'The Wretched of the Earth'

This special issue of the Journal of French & Francophone Philosophy is titled 'Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth, Fifty Years Later' and includes articles by Thinking Africa fellows Nigel Gibson, Jane Gordon and Lewis Gordon. It is online (free) here.