Fanon 100
Starts:
Finishes:
Venue:
Birkbeck Main Building, Malet Street
2025 marks the centenary year of the birth of Frantz Fanon. Despite Fanon’s enormous influence in postcolonial studies, political thought, the history of Marxism and the humanities more widely, the specifically philosophical significance of his works is less commonly recognized.
This significance can be borne out in two broad forms. First, his contributions bear upon the traditions of European thought to which he belongs, and the concepts from which he adapts within his own works. For instance, he offers modifications to important concepts found in the works of Hegel and Nietzsche predominantly, but also engages with Merleau-Ponty, Bergson, Césaire, Freud, Adler, Beauvoir, and Sartre.
Second, and less addressed in the scholarship, his works can be taken to offer important contributions in their own right to phenomenology, metaethics, moral psychology, theories of recognition and intersubjectivity, and the philosophy of history, as well as (more obviously) the philosophy of race and political philosophy.
It is the strong expectation of the program committee that a great deal of philosophical attention will be paid to Fanon in the coming years. Thus, it is the ambition of this two-day conference to break ground ahead of this expected increase in attention. The conference will bring into dialogue both senior international scholars whose works on Fanon spans decades, and rising stars engaging in fruitful early career research.
This is an in-person event. It will also be a launchpad for an interdisciplinary research centre, the Birkbeck Centre for Fanon Studies and Decolonial Research.
Conference Schedule
(Schedule may be subject to change)
Friday 27th June
Room B20, Malet Street Main Building, Birkbeck, University of London
09:40 – 09:45 – Opening Remarks
09:45 – 10:55 – Daniele Lorenzini (University of Pennsylvania)
Paper Title: ‘The Aptness of Violence’
10:55 – 11:05 – Coffee Break
11:05 – 12:15 – Komarine Romdenh-Romluc (University of Sheffield)
Paper Title: ‘Race, Rape and the Unconscious in Black Skin White Masks’
12:15 – 13:40 – Break for Lunch
13:40 – 14:50 – Kylie Erfani (George Mason University)
Paper Title: ‘Demystifying Violence in Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth’
14:50 – 15:00 – Coffee Break
15:00 – 16:10 – Marie Wuth (University of Hamburg)
Paper Title: ‘Skincare: Racialized Identities, Decolonial Refusal, and the Politics of Touch’
16:10 – 16:20 – Coffee Break
16:20 – 17:35 – Robert Bernasconi (Pennsylvania State University)
Paper Title: "Fanon's New Humanity and Sartre's 'The Roots of Ethics’"
Saturday 28th June
Room B20, Malet Street Main Building, Birkbeck, University of London
09:45 – 10:55 – Oscar Guardiola-Rivera (Birkbeck, University of London)
and Kojo Koram (Birkbeck, University of London)
Paper Title: ‘Fanon and the Law’
10:55 – 11:05 – Coffee Break
11:05 – 12:15 – Richard Elliott (University of Reading/Birkbeck, University of London)
Paper Title: ‘Fanon on Ressentiment and Recognition’
12:15 – 13:40 – Break for Lunch
13:40 – 14:50 – Lucie K. Mercier (University of Geneva)
Paper Title: ‘Fanon’s Theatrum Philosophicum’
14:50 – 15:00 –Coffee Break
15:00 – 16:15 – Lewis R. Gordon (University of Connecticut)
Paper Title: ‘Dear Frantz Maguerite Victor Fanon’
16:25 - Conference Ends
Contact name: Oscar Guardiola-Rivera
Speakers-
Daniele Lorenzini
—
University of Pennsylvania
-
Dr Kojo Koram
—
Birkbeck College, University of London UK
-
Jane Anna Gordon
—
University of Connecticut
-
Komarine Romdenh-Romluc
—
Univeersity of Sheffield
- Kylie Erfani
-
Lewis R. Gordon
—
University of Connecticut
-
Marie Wuth
—
University of Hamburg
-
Mr Richard Elliott
—
Birkbeck College, University of London UK
-
Norman Ajari
—
University of Edinburgh
-
Prof Oscar Guardiola-Rivera
—
Birkbeck College, University of London UK
-
Robert Bernasconi
—
Pennsylvania State University
Tags: