Rethinking Fanon : The Continuing Dialogue

By Nigel C. Gibson

Book Overview

Nearly forty years after his death, social philosopher Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) remains a towering intellectual figure. From colonial Martinique and trained as a psychologist in France, Fanon rejected his French citizenship to join the Algerian liberation movement in the 1950s. A brilliant scholar who developed the theory that some neuroses are socially generated, Fanon's revolutionary works--The Wretched of the Earth, Toward the African Revolution, and Black Skin, White Masks--spurred an African intellectual awakening.

The rebirth of Fanonism today in universities and the English-speaking world is a testament to his relevance. Edited by distinguished African-studies professor Nigel C. Gibson, Rethinking Fanon opens with an authoritative biography which corrects fallacious assertions about Fanon's life, situating him in Marxism, Negritude, Pan-Africanism, and the historical context of postwar decolonization, specifically the Algerian revolution. Section one is highlighted by extended discussions of Marx, Fanon's theories on sophisticated forms of cultural racism, and "true liberation." The next section examines Fanon's humanist philosophy, his philosophical and geographical journeys, and his attitude toward the necessity of revolution. Also included is Homi Bhabha's well-known essay "Remembering Fanon," which contemplates the seeming rejection of Fanon in Britain in the 1970s, in contrast to his major following in America and the influence of Fanon on South African writer Steven Biko. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Edward Said discuss the importance of the 1980s' and 1990s' cultural and literary debates on Fanon. Gates notes that Fanon has been reinstated -not as a global theorist of "third world" revolution, but instead as a critic of English writers and British romanticists. Benita Parry reexamines African nationalism and liberation, and sheds new light on Fanon's questions of identity and agency. This excellent collection reflects the continuing impact of Fanon's thought on African-American and African studies, feminism, postcolonialism, and cultural studies.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1573927090
• ISBN13: 9781573927093
• Release Date: March 1999
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 1.0" x 1.0"

Customer Reviews

Important collection if essays on Frantz Fanon

Anyone interested in Frantz Fanon and post colonial studies would do well to start here. This well rounded critical volume discusses Fanon's thought and its contexts as well as current debates. The collection includes essays by Said, Gates, Bhabha, McClintock and Fuss as well as important essays by less well known authors including Bulhan, Sharpley-Whiting, Gibson (who also writes a provocative introduction) and Turner. It has a good number of essays on the debates around Fanon and Feminism. 460 pages at this price, it's a deal.

Frantz Fanon and his legacy

Forged in the colonialism of Martinique, confirmed by the racism of Paris and vividly enlivened by the Algerian revolution, Frantz Fanon's all too brief life (1925-1961) and thought were inextricably linked to the transformation of reality. Fanon's historical importance as a Black theorist with a total critique of imperialism has made him a crucial figure in the Black struggles in the U.S., the fight against apartheid in South Africa and postcolonial theory. RETHINKING FANON: THE CONTINUING DIALOGUE is a new collection of essays, edited by Nigel Gibson, which highlights Fanon's significance by airing controversies over his legacy. The issues which generate the most controversy concern the meaning of Fanon's humanism and his assessment of the role of women in the Algerian revolution. The two issues are intimately linked. Fanon's famous critique of "The Pitfalls of National Consciousness" outlines the ways in which a revolution can stop short or turn into its opposite if a narrow vision of the past is imposed as a substitute for the ongoing development of a new culture. In one of the most moving pieces in the collection, Algerian feminist Marie-Aimée Helie-Lucas relates the hideous damage done by delaying women's liberation until after the revolution. The building of a "national culture" falls disproportionately on women, who become symbolic carriers of traditions which are "seen as ahistorical and immutable" (275). "Defending women's rights 'now'-this now being any historical moment-is always a betrayal of the people, the nation, the revolution, religion, national identity, cultural roots" (280). Helie-Lucas holds Fanon partly responsible for this bind in which women were placed after the revolution, claiming that he created a myth of Algerian women's "revolutionary virtue of the veil" (275). T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting considers this argument, but rejects it, saying that Fanon was not trying to make a stagnant principle out of the veil. Instead, he was dialectically recording a fluid revolutionary situation, relating "Algerian women's resistance in a way that can be remembered, recalled, and corrected by women in their present quests for self-actualization" (350). The debate on women's liberation is the most exciting section of the book, framed as it is by the voices of Algerian women liberationists. Zouligha, described as an activist, writes movingly of the silences that pervade an Algeria terrorized by armed Islamist groups, but she warns that it is not enough to simply oppose religious fundamentalism. Those "women's associations who limited themselves to the struggle against the Islamists ended up allying themselves with the state power" (366). A NEW HUMANISM The issues Zouligha raises are key to understanding the dialectic of revolution for which Fanon was reaching. As Nigel Gibson writes, "in contrast to an 'Islamic' nation, Fanon posited not simply secularism but a 'new humanism'" (29). This concept is taken up by Lou Turner and John Alan in