Frantz Fanon, Then and Now

The author of the Les Damnés de la Terre and Peau Noire, Masques Blancs has remained immensely influential in anti-colonial and decolonial studies, and movements, since his death in 1961. What is the enduring power of his work? How has his work resisted becoming merely academic history? In what ways have his two books (and others collected after his death) been received, and received differently, and by whom? What lessons can we draw from Fanon at this conjuncture? This seminar will read his classic texts and screen documentaries that have proliferated in recent years. Guarding against any hagiography of a single figure, we will also try to place Fanon in his revolutionary context within the Algerian revolution. Students will be required to keep a weekly journal.