50 Years Later: Fanon's Legacy and the Caribbean / Bahamas, College of the Bahamas
On
6 December 2011, 50 years will have passed since the death of Frantz
Fanon. Born in 1925 in the French colony of Martinique, Fanon's personal
experiences of everyday life under colonialism would yield two of the
most influential texts in anti-colonial revolutionary thought: Black Skin, White Masks (1952), and The Wretched of the Earth (1961).
Symposium Rationale
Frantz Fanon is today one of the most widely known and
influential Caribbean born theorists and revolutionary activists.
His life and work, moving from the French Caribbean, to metropolitan France to Algeria in North Africa would have an impact on anti -colonial, anti-racist and liberation struggles as far and wide as Iran, South Africa, the Middle East, the Indian Ocean and the United States. But what of his impact on/in the Caribbean region of his birth? Can Fanon's work speak to the Caribbean's contemporary challenges: labor and migration; capitalism and globalization; and post-911 geopolitics? Can we trace Fanon's influence in the long struggle for Caribbean independence and sovereignty? Is Fanon relevant to examinations of the crucial foundations of Caribbean societies: slavery and the slave economy; colonialism and resistance to colonialism; race and the development of Creole society?
Symposium date: Friday, December 2, 2011 at COB
Schedule of Activities
9-10:15 - Fanon's Sexual Politics and the Circum Caribbean
Coffee break
10:30-11:45 - Keynote speaker : Nigel Gibson, PhD. Emerson College
12-1:00 Catered Lunch
1:15-2:30 - The Violence of National Development
Coffee break
2:45-4:00 - Dis We Ting Too: Fanon and Contemporary Bahamian Experience
Coffee break
4:15-5:30 - Roundtable discussion: 50 Years Later: Fanon's Legacy and/in the Caribbean
Keynote Speaker
E. Anthony Hurley
E. Anthony Hurley is Associate Professor in the Department of Africana Studies at Stony Brook University (State University of New York) and the author of Through a Black Veil: Readings in French Caribbean Poetry.
Neil Roberts, Williams College
Neil Roberts is originally from Kingston, Jamaica, and splits his time between the United States and the Caribbean, maintaining familial and intellectual ties that continually cross nation-state borders. He is the author of published and forthcoming articles, reviews, and book chapters in The Cambridge Dictionary of Political Thought, Caribbean Studies, Clamor magazine, The C.L.R. James Journal, Encyclopedia of Political Theory, Journal of Haitian Studies, New Political Science, Patterns of Prejudice, Perspectives on Politics, Philosophia Africana, Philosophy in Review/Comptes Rendus Philosophiques, Political Theory, Sartre Studies International, Shibboleths, Souls, and an anthology devoted to the thought of Sylvia Wynter.
Jana Evans Braziel
Jana Evans Braziel is Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Affiliate Faculty in Africana Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Cincinnati. Braziel's scholarly and pedagogical interests are in American hemispheric literatures and cultures, Caribbean studies, Haitian studies, and the intersections of diaspora, transnational activism, and globalization. Braziel is the author of four monographs: Duvalier's Ghosts: Race, Diaspora, and U.S. Imperialism in Haitian Literatures (U of Florida P, 2010); Caribbean Genesis: Jamaica Kincaid and the Writing of New Worlds (SUNY, 2009); Artists, Performers, and Black Masculinity in the Haitian Diaspora (Indiana University Press, 2008); and Diaspora: An Introduction (Blackwell, 2008).
His life and work, moving from the French Caribbean, to metropolitan France to Algeria in North Africa would have an impact on anti -colonial, anti-racist and liberation struggles as far and wide as Iran, South Africa, the Middle East, the Indian Ocean and the United States. But what of his impact on/in the Caribbean region of his birth? Can Fanon's work speak to the Caribbean's contemporary challenges: labor and migration; capitalism and globalization; and post-911 geopolitics? Can we trace Fanon's influence in the long struggle for Caribbean independence and sovereignty? Is Fanon relevant to examinations of the crucial foundations of Caribbean societies: slavery and the slave economy; colonialism and resistance to colonialism; race and the development of Creole society?
Symposium date: Friday, December 2, 2011 at COB
Schedule of Activities
9-10:15 - Fanon's Sexual Politics and the Circum Caribbean Coffee break
10:30-11:45 - Keynote speaker : Nigel Gibson, PhD. Emerson College
12-1:00 Catered Lunch
1:15-2:30 - The Violence of National Development
Coffee break
2:45-4:00 - Dis We Ting Too: Fanon and Contemporary Bahamian Experience
Coffee break
4:15-5:30 - Roundtable discussion: 50 Years Later: Fanon's Legacy and/in the Caribbean
Nigel C. Gibson, Emerson College
Nigel C. Gibson is an expert in the fields of Africana thought, postcolonialism and African Studies. He has presented his work in Africa, Europe and the Americas, as well as speaking at the UN and appearing on the History Channel. He is author of Fanon: The Postcolonial Imagination, editor of Rethinking Fanon and Challenging Hegemony: Social Movements and the Quest for a New Humanism in Post-Apartheid South Africa and co-editor of Contested Terrains: Contemporary Africa in Focus, Adorno: A Critical Reader and Biko Lives. He is currently the editor of the Journal of Asian and African Studies.
Roundtable Speakers
E. Anthony Hurley
E. Anthony Hurley is Associate Professor in the Department of Africana Studies at Stony Brook University (State University of New York) and the author of Through a Black Veil: Readings in French Caribbean Poetry.
Neil Roberts, Williams College
Neil Roberts is originally from Kingston, Jamaica, and splits his time between the United States and the Caribbean, maintaining familial and intellectual ties that continually cross nation-state borders. He is the author of published and forthcoming articles, reviews, and book chapters in The Cambridge Dictionary of Political Thought, Caribbean Studies, Clamor magazine, The C.L.R. James Journal, Encyclopedia of Political Theory, Journal of Haitian Studies, New Political Science, Patterns of Prejudice, Perspectives on Politics, Philosophia Africana, Philosophy in Review/Comptes Rendus Philosophiques, Political Theory, Sartre Studies International, Shibboleths, Souls, and an anthology devoted to the thought of Sylvia Wynter.
Jana Evans Braziel
Jana Evans Braziel is Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Affiliate Faculty in Africana Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Cincinnati. Braziel's scholarly and pedagogical interests are in American hemispheric literatures and cultures, Caribbean studies, Haitian studies, and the intersections of diaspora, transnational activism, and globalization. Braziel is the author of four monographs: Duvalier's Ghosts: Race, Diaspora, and U.S. Imperialism in Haitian Literatures (U of Florida P, 2010); Caribbean Genesis: Jamaica Kincaid and the Writing of New Worlds (SUNY, 2009); Artists, Performers, and Black Masculinity in the Haitian Diaspora (Indiana University Press, 2008); and Diaspora: An Introduction (Blackwell, 2008).
