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 be premièred at the Eye on July 5, complementing the already now canonical films by Isaac Julien (1995), Göran Olsson (2014), and Hassane Mezine (2019). 

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

DEFINITIVE PROGRAM

9.30 – 11.45

P.C. Hoofthuis. 00.5, P.C. Hoofthuis is on Spuistraat134, 1012 VB, Amsterdam

On the pedagogies of Fanonian thought, in conversation with Norman Ajari, with special presentation by Michael Thomas 

Session especially for students enrolled for NICA credits. If you are not already signed up, and want to attend, space is limited for students. Our room is just large enough for those signed up for this session. Alas, we are now at full capacity for this session.

10.00 – 10.15  Welcome and intro of Norman Ajari, Michael Thomas, and Francio Guadeloupe (Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken)

10.15 – 10.35  Michael Thomas – “Fanon’s Aesthetics and the Dynamics of Black Thought”  (pre-recorded especially for this occasion)

10.35 – 11.45  In conversation with Norman Ajari and his writings, with Graduate Students and Francio Guadeloupe 

CATERING: Sweets with coffee and tea, for students attending this session

11.45 – 12.45

CATERING: 

Lunch for students who attended morning session

12.55 – 14.30 

P.C. Hoofthuis. 1.05, P.C. Hoofthuis is on Spuistraat134, 1012 VB, Amsterdam

Aesthetics, pessimisms, and Fanonian thought, moderated by Marija Cetinić 

• Sanjukta Sunderason (UvA) – ““An aesthetics of combat? Some notes on art & violence in decolonial liberation wars” 
• Jana Cattien (UvA) – “Neurotic Situations”
• Julian Isenia (UvA) – “What the islands speak: Language, Fanon, Glissant and the Dutch Caribbean”
• Mehdi Ait Oukhzame – “(Anti-)Blackness, Fugitive Positionality, and the Human Question”

CATERING: Coffee, tea, fruit, for all attending this session.

14.30 – 14.45 break

14.45 –  16.15

P.C. Hoofthuis. 1.05, P.C. Hoofthuis is on Spuistraat134, 1012 VB, Amsterdam

Fanon and Political Action, moderated by Nawal Mustafa

• Kwame Nimako – “Fanon and Governance”
• Afu Sensi
• Mano Delea – “A Fanonian Perspective on the Dutch Orbit: Structure, Agency, and Racialization”
• Grâce Ndjako

16.15 – 16.45 break

CATERING: Sodas, chips, dips, fruit, for all attending this session.

16.45 – 19.00   

P.C. Hoofthuis is on Spuistraat134, 1012 VB, Amsterdam

• 16.45 – 17.00 – Passer la parole, paying forward  the earlier conversations into our keynote panel  —  Yanique Hume 
• 17 – 19.00 Keynote Panel, moderated by Wayne Modest
• David Theo Goldberg – “Variations on Violence” 
• Layal Ftouni – “The Revolutionary and the Outlaw: Fanon on Anti-colonial Struggle?”
• Monique Roelofs – “Fanon on Address: A Swerve around Racial Impossibility”
• Rehnuma Sazzad – “The Urgencies of Fanonian Thought in Scholarship, Pedagogy, and Activism: Engaging with Fanon’s Contributions to Humanist Nationalism”
• Norman Ajari – “On ending the world: Fanon's ecosophy”

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.