{"id":38,"date":"2016-05-20T19:53:02","date_gmt":"2016-05-20T19:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/?page_id=38"},"modified":"2017-04-06T15:29:16","modified_gmt":"2017-04-06T19:29:16","slug":"8-13","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/8-13\/","title":{"rendered":"8\/13 | Frantz Fanon"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><\/h1>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ze86Ym5M4mw\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">Frantz Fanon and Nietzsche<\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">with <a href=\"https:\/\/complit.as.nyu.edu\/object\/emilyapter.html\">Emily Apter<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/english.fas.harvard.edu\/faculty\/bhabha\/\">Homi Bhabha<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/aaas.fas.harvard.edu\/people\/brandon-terry\">Brandon Terry<\/a><\/h1>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">January 19, 2017 at 6:15pm<\/h2>\n<p>Frantz Fanon\u2019s (1925-1961) thought and writings are marked by an orientation toward a possible future both in time and space, captured so poignantly in the closing chapter of <em>Black Skin, White Masks <\/em>(1952)\u2014his call to constantly introduce \u201cinvention into life,\u201d to \u201cendlessly create myself,\u201d to \u201cbuild the world of <em>you<\/em>\u201d\u2014and in the closing line of <em>The Wretched of the Earth<\/em>: \u201ccomrades, we must make a new start, develop a new way of thinking, and endeavor to create a new man.\u201d Fanon\u2019s call on the colonized to \u201cstart over a new history of man\u201d is striking, and naturally brings to mind many of the themes we have been discussing in Nietzsche 13\/13.<\/p>\n<p>Fanon\u2019s first book\u2014<em>Black Skin, White Masks<\/em>, published by Le Seuil in 1952 when Fanon was only 27 years old\u2014was book-ended by Nietzsche. A certain Freudo-marxian Nietzsche, a Nietzsche embedded in a psychoanalytic perspective\u2014but a Nietzsche nonetheless. Nietzsche is both the first philosopher explicitly mentioned in text and the final philosopher who closes the last page of the conclusion. \u201cMan\u2019s misfortune, Nietzsche said, was that he was once a child,\u201d Fanon writes in the opening pages of the introduction, before naming Freud or even mentioning disalienation. And Fanon closes his book, after returning to the theme of disalienation, again with the penultimate thought that \u201cAt the start of his life, a man is always congested, drowned in contingency. The misfortune of man is that he was once a child.\u201d<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/introduction-to-frantz-fanon\/#_edn5\" name=\"_ednref5\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Nietzsche, Freud, Marx\u2014the great nineteenth century thinkers of suspicion\u2014accompany Fanon. And as they did, Fanon too would unmask. Unmask those \u201cwhite masks\u201d brought on by European colonialisms and their attendant complexes of inferiority. Much like Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, and building on that even earlier critical tradition, Fanon would seek to lift the veil from our eyes, to emancipate us from our self-incurred immaturity\u2014from our childhood.<\/p>\n<p>For Fanon, the task would not be easy\u2014in part because of the peculiar history of French slavery and colonialism. As Fanon would show in the penultimate section of <em>Black Skin, White Masks<\/em>, titled \u201cThe Black Man and Hegel,\u201d the Hegelian dialectic of master and slave would not play itself out in the same way in the French context, because the French lord as well as the colonized (and here, Fanon drew a distinction with the American experience) is \u201cbasically different from the one described by Hegel.\u201d The colonizer does not seek recognition, and the colonized is far more dependent on him. In the French context, Fanon, writes, \u201cthe black man does not know the price of freedom because he has never fought for it.\u201d It has just been given to him\u2014in diluted and make-believe ways.<\/p>\n<p>The Hegelian dialectic cannot play itself out\u2014but leads, in this case, only to a purely reactional phase full of <em>ressentiment<\/em>. And it is therefore to Nietzsche and his will to power that Fanon turns to articulate a positive, \u201cactional\u201d call to arms. \u201cNietzsche had already said it in <em>The Will to Power<\/em>,\u201d Fanon writes at the end of the last chapter on \u201cThe Black Man and Recognition.\u201d Fanon adds\u2014once again, accompanied by Nietzsche:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cTo induce man to be <em>actional<\/em>, by maintaining in his circularity the respect of the fundamental values that make the world human, that is the task of utmost urgency for he who, after careful reflection, prepares to act.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It is this positive, willful call to action that Fanon leaves us with in 1952: a call to introduce \u201cinvention into life,\u201d to \u201cbuild the world of <em>you<\/em>, man,\u201d to always question, to disalienate, to \u201ctouch the other, feel the other, discover each other.\u201d To \u201ctake a stand against this living death.\u201d<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/introduction-to-frantz-fanon\/#_edn12\" name=\"_ednref12\"><\/a> To be \u201ca revolutionary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Black Skin<\/em> returns to the Dionysian poetics of C\u00e9saire. It harkens back to C\u00e9saire\u2019s conception of \u201cN\u00e9gritude,\u201d<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/introduction-to-frantz-fanon\/#_edn16\" name=\"_ednref16\"><\/a> which we discussed at <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/aime-cesaire-poetic-knowledge-vitality-negritude-and-revolution\/\">the last Nietzsche 13\/13<\/a>\u2014in fact, the continuity from that last seminar is striking. It is in C\u00e9saire that Fanon finds the best expression of cultural imposition and of the task ahead: to go all the way down, to reach rock bottom, but to come back up and overcome\u2014bringing \u201cthe black man\u201d with him, \u201clift[ing] him up to the skies.\u201d \u201cRise\/ Rise\/ Rise,\u201d that is the sentiment, and one can almost hear Zarathustra as well in those passages.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a0~~~<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Frantz Fanon\u2019s <em>Black Skin, White Masks<\/em> (1952) reflects a deep engagement with the thought of Nietzsche, especially in relation to the themes of the active and reactive, spiritual metamorphoses, creativity, and willing a new vision of humanity. In this seminar, we will explore Fanon\u2019s work and its influence on critical and postcolonial theory with our distinguished guests,<a href=\"https:\/\/complit.as.nyu.edu\/object\/emilyapter.html\"> Emily Apter<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/english.fas.harvard.edu\/faculty\/bhabha\/\">Homi Bhabha<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/aaas.fas.harvard.edu\/people\/brandon-terry\">Brandon Terry<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Welcome to Nietzsche 8\/13!<\/p>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-555\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/files\/2016\/05\/red-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"red\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/files\/2016\/05\/red-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/files\/2016\/05\/red-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/files\/2016\/05\/red-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/files\/2016\/05\/red.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/h1>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">[Read full post <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/introduction-to-frantz-fanon\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>. \u00a9 Bernard E. Harcourt]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Frantz Fanon and Nietzsche with Emily Apter, Homi Bhabha, and Brandon Terry January 19, 2017 at 6:15pm Frantz Fanon\u2019s (1925-1961) thought and writings are marked by an orientation toward a possible future both in time and space, captured so poignantly&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/8-13\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1603,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-38","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1603"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/38\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/nietzsche1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}