DATE – Tuesday, June 24

TIME & LOCATION

10.00 – 11.45 in  P.C. Hoofthuis 0.05 (Session especially for NICA credit students.)

12.55 – 19.00 in  P.C. Hoofthuis 1.05 (Sessions open: please just come. We expect quite a few attendees, so come early. We can only accommodate to room capacity.)

P.C. Hoofthuis is on Spuistraat 134, 1012 VB, Amsterdam

Many are the events worldwide to commemorate the centennial of Fanon's birth in 2025 (e.g. Caribbean Philosophical Association in Martinique as a large-scale conference this summer; University of London's SFPS conference in November; smaller events already taking place throughout the Netherlands, with notably screenings of films and discussions in May 2025 with UvA Decolonial Futures Fellow Ahmed Memon, Tilburg Law School 2025 Witteveen Memorial Fellow Anamika Misra, and Black Archives Researcher Phaedra Haringsma. Jean-Claude Barny (2025) has just made a new film, which will premièred in the Netherlands in early July, as well as Abdenour Zahzah’s 2024 film, which won an award at the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO) this past year, complementing the already now canonical films by Isaac Julien (1995) or by Göran Olsson (2014).

For our part, our inquiry for this current small-scale event, is the following: 

How to put the more psychoanalytical legacies of Fanonian thought into conversation with concrete activist work?  How might we articulate the urgencies of Fanonian thought in scholarship, pedagogy, and activism? What are the stakes of teaching Fanon today?

Beyond the facile and albeit seductive romanticization of Fanon's writing and life especially in the 'cultural industry,'  why is it that Fanonian thought remains overwhelmingly central to the work of so many scholars from quite varying, even schismic, affective relationships to the de/post/colonial? How might we account for these quite divergent intellectual legacies? As such, these curated panels, are interested in creating plenary conversations between and among the legacies of his work, among scholars in the political, the literary, the philosophical, and the psychoanalytical.

Confirmed keynote speakers are: Norman Ajari, Layal Ftouni, David Theo Goldberg, Monique Roelofs, and Rehnuma Sazzad, moderated by Wayne Modest.

Confirmed speakers and moderators are: Mehdi Ait Oukhzame, Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken, Jana Cattien, Marija Cetinić, Mano Delea, Julian Isenia, Nawal Mustafa, Grâce Ndjako, Kwame Nimako, Afu Sensi, Sanjukta Sunderason, and Michael Thomas, and hopefully also with the participation of Francio Guadeloupe.

If you are a student, you may apply for 1 or 2 ECTs. Please contact a.benedicty@uva.nl to register.

For any questions about the event: a.benedicty@uva.nl

PROGRAM (subject to change, and full final program to be posted a few days before event)

10.00 – 11.45  (P.C. Hoofthuis 0.05)

Pedagogies of Fanonian thought: In conversation with Norman Ajari,

with a presentation specifically prepared for this session by Michael Thomas

Session especially for students enrolled for NICA credits. Please email a.benedicty@uva.nl to enroll.

11.45 – 12.55 break

12.55 – 14.30 (P.C. Hoofthuis 1.05)

Aesthetics, pessimisms, and Fanonian thought

14.30 – 14.45 break

14.45 –  16.15 (P.C. Hoofthuis 1.05)

Fanon and political action

16.15 – 16.40 break

16.40 – 17.00

Paying-forward the earlier part of the day & acknowledgements

17.00 – 19.00 

Keynote panel

Special thanks to the enthusiasm and support from:

Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis

Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis

Decolonial Futures Research Priority Area

Black Europe Summer School

Research Center for Material Culture at het Wereldmuseum

Literary and Cultural Analysis Bachelor Program, Research Master in Cultural Analysis, Master in Comparative and Cultural Analysis

Special thanks for curatorial support from: Layal Ftouni, Quinsy Gario, Yolande Jansen, Kwame Nimako, Wayne Modest, Kwame Nimako, and Sanjukta Sunderason.

Also, heartfelt thanks to Jaap Kooijman, Eloe Kingma, Jantine van Gogh, Emily de Klerk; Eliana Cusato, Sanjukta Sunderason, Darshan Vigneswaran; Pepita Hesselberth, Kim Sommer; Olombi Bois, Ilaria Obata, Esmee Schoutens, Carine Zaayman; Emiel Martens; Niall Martin and Esther Peeren.

Event organized by: Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken and Sanjukta Sunderason.