The Frantz Fanon Foundation organized its 4th Rencontres : « Fanon, Hope and the Day After » on 6-7 December 2019 at Birkbeck College, University of London. Discover all the videos of the event on our Youtube channel and our Facebook page !
PROGRAM
6 DECEMBER
17.30-18.00. Frantz Fanon Foundation Introduction
Performance
Focus on the Funk Collective
18.00-19.00. Keynote Speech
Ash Sarkar on Transnational Solidarity, the Decolonial
19.30-21.00. Recital
Aimé Césaire’s “Cahier d’un retour au pays natal“
performed by Jacques Martial
21.30. Social event
7 DECEMBER
10.00-11.00 Panel 1
“What Hope? Fanon, Horizon and Institutional Invention”
Jorge Garcia, Lara Sheehi, Stephen Sheehi, and Leticia da Costa Paes
11.00-12.00. Panel 2
“Utopia betrayed ? Fanon Against Pessimism, Beyond Imagination” Decolonize This Place, and Lewis R. Gordon
12.00-13.30. Film
“The Shape of Now”
by Manuel Correa (2019) Q & A with the film director (1 h 12 min)
13.00-14.30. Lunch Break
16.00-17.30. Panel 4
“Fanon on the question: What If the Global South Ruled the World?” Lewis Gordon, Azad Ashim Sharma, Kojo Koram,
and Colectiva Feminista en Construcción
18.00. Closing Plenary
“Fanon’s Orientation, Decolonize the Place” With Decolonize this Place and Colectiva Feminista en Construcción
20.00. Social Event
Participants & Contributors
Ash Sarkar
is a British activist, a writer, broadcaster, journalist, a scholar and a creative force behind some of the most in uential alternative and digital media outlets in the United Kingdom, as well as being a participant and collaborator of Focus on the Funk since its inception. She is currently a senior editor at Novara Media, produces and presents #AshWednesday for Novara Media and teaches at the Sandberg Institute. Her work focuses on racism, gender, class and power. In 2017, she taught Global Politics at Anglia Ruskin University. Sarkar is a contributor to The Guardian and The Independent and is a regular commentator on politics and society in UK broadcast and online media.
Azad Ashim Sharma
lives and writes in South London. He studied Literature and Critical Theory at the University of Sussex, and is now a candidate for the M.A. in Creative Writing at Birkbeck College, University of London. In 2018 he was part of a se- lected group of performing writers developing the What Are Words Worth/Sentient Value Systems project, together with the Serpentine Gallery. His work in written and spoken word focuses on politics, philosophy, creative methods and the futurities of anti-racism. His poetry collection Against the Frame was published in 2017. It deals with the on-going con icts in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, as well as Azad’s own complex Islamic-Hindu hybrid identity.
Colectiva Feminista en Construcción
have been active in Puerto Rico since at least 2017 and featured prominently in the 2019 protests that led to the resignation of Governor Ricardo Roselló. In November 2018, they camped outside the governor’s mansion for three days, demanding that he declare a state of emergency as domestic violence surged across the island in the wake of Hurricane María. He refused at the time but met with them earlier this year. Colectiva gave him a list of demands, including the introduction of a gender studies curriculum in public schools to help prevent violence against women. This collective of feminists from di erent walks of life, ages and social groups converged in the various manifestations of the resistance in Puerto Rico. Manifestations of the resistance include, but are not limited to, student, anti-colo- nialist and LGBTQ struggles that ght racist and patriarchal colonialism. They’re building a grassroots feminist mo- vement that recognizes that the di erent manifestations of oppression, sexism, ci-sexism, machismo, racism, xenophobia and capitalism are interrelated and must be eradicated. Colectiva’s spokespersons for this event include Zoan Dávila, Shariana Ferrer, Patricia Alegría, Vanesa Contreras and Saadi Rosado.
Manuel Correa
is a Colombian artist and lmmaker, currently doing work with the Research Architecture program and the Forensic Architecture project at Goldsmiths University of London. Correa doesn’t work with any particular medium, but instead forms part of a new group of art professionals that are interested in the spaces available in the artworld to share ideas and creative explorations. His work deals with digital and post-con ict memory reconstruction in contemporary societies. In 2016 his video #ARTOFFLINE was premiered at the Rotterdam International Film Festival. His videos have been presented in venues such as the Ru no Tamayo Museum, Presentation House Gallery, The University of Copenhagen, Medellín Museum of Modern Art, the 8th Norwegian Sculpture Biennial, Kunsternes Hus in Oslo, Palazzo Grassi in Venice, Kadist Arts Foundation, DOK Leipzig international documentary lm festival, amongst other spaces.
Leticia da Costa Paes
is a Doctoral candidate at Birkbeck College, University of London. She holds a Masters degree in State Theory and Constitutional Law from PUC, Rio de Janeiro, has taught at the School of Law in PUC-Rio de Janeiro, and is Academic Coordinator of the Human Rights Program in the same institution. She’s the author of “Rethinking Critique: Becoming Clinician” published in Law & Critique and O Legado do Tribunal Russell II para a História dos Direitos Humanos.
Decolonize This Place
is an action-oriented movement centring around Indigenous struggle, Black liberation, free Palestine, global wage workers and de-gentri cation. It’s facilitated by MTL+ Collective. As part of their actions, and in collaboration with various grassroots and community organisations, DTP produce videos as well as downloadable zines and posters including 4th Anti-Columbus Day Tour: Decolonize this Museum, Decolonize this City (10/2019), Indigenous Peoples Day: Decolonize This Museum (08/2018), Decolonize Brooklyn Museum Action (04/2018), Palestine, BLM & Boycott in the Arts, among others. For this event, DTP would include Nitasha Dhillon, Amin Husain and Marz Sa ore.
Mireille Fanon Mendès-France
is an activist, former UN Expert and the current chair of the Frantz Fanon International Foundation. She’s the author of numerous articles and reports on human rights, international and humanitarian law. Her focus is on processes of racialisation and discrimination as well as forms of internal and external colonialism. In 2018 she participated in the international conferences “Bandung of the North” and “Global ’68.”
Jorge A. Garcia
was born and raised in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. He moved to Chicago where he obtained an AS degree in Mathematics with an emphasis in Philosophy, and thereafter a degree in Sociology with an emphasis on theory, history, and power structures. He’s founder and Advisor to the Board of Directors of the Center for Social Sustainable Systems (CESOSS), a non-pro t community-based research and learning centre serving his South Valley local community. Having been involved in the Indigenous Continental Movement for over two decades, his research focuses on the current use of Mesoamerican calendars, Mexican thought, and symbolism. He’s a member of the Red Wolf Society of Dancers, and Senior Program Manager at The University of New Mexico El Centro de la Raza, which seeks to em- power underprivileged students and focus on issues related to identity, intercultural studies, and social work. His piece Timekeepers was featured recently in the art/activist magazine South As A State of Mind.
Lewis R. Gordon
is an Afro-Jewish philosopher, political thinker, educator and musician who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale University. Gordon’s research in philosophy is in Africana philosophy, philosophy of existence, phenomenology, social and political philosophy, philosophy of culture, aesthetics, philosophy of education, and philosophy of science. His philosophy and social theory have been the subjects of many studies in a variety of disciplines. He’s co-founder of the Caribbean Philosophical Association, of which he was the rst president (2003 to 2008). He is a professor of philosophy with a liations in Judaic studies, Caribbean and Latina/o studies, and Asian and Asian American studies at UCONN-Storrs, and his visiting appointments include the European Union Visiting Chair in Philosophy at Université de Toulouse Jean Jaurès, France (since 2013), Honorary Professor in UHURU, the Unit for the Humanities at the uni- versity currently known as Rhodes in South Africa, where he was formerly the Nelson Mandela Distinguished Visiting Chair in Political and International Studies (2014, 2015), Visiting Professor in Philosophy and Government at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica (since 1998), and Writer-in-Residence at the Birkbeck School of Law at the University of London (2016).
Oscar Guardiola-Rivera
is a member of the Funk Collective. He’s one of Latin America’s leading intellectuals; a playwright, poet, philosopher and curator of the 2017 Global Art Forum and the 2018 Global ’68 with Françoise Vergès and Marcus Rediker. He’s active in the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities and Professor of Political Philosophy and Human Rights at Birkbeck College, University of London, also a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Advancement of the Arts. He nominates for the international Photography Prix Pictet and collaborates regularly with The Independent, The Guardian, El Espec- tador, BBC News, Novara and Monocle, among other media outlets. His What if Latin America Ruled the World?: How the South Will Take the North into the 22nd Century (Bloomsbury, 2010) won the Frantz Fanon Award, Story of a Death Foretold (Bloomsbury, 2013) was shortlisted for the 2014 Bread & Roses Award and both were selected among the best non- ction books of their year; also author of Cómo construir sociedades: diez cosas que nunca nos dicen sobre la paz y la guerrra (Javeriana, 2015), and A Defence of Art/Armed Struggle (UTadeo, 2019). His Funk Manifesto is featured in the autumn issue of South as a State of Mind, and his prose poem Night of the World will be published by The 87 Press in 2020.
Kojo Koram
is a member of the Funk Collective. Dr Koram is a Lecturer at the Birkbeck School of Law, University of London. His research interests include: Critical International law, Colonialism, Race and the Law, and Political/juridical theology. Methodologically, his work draws upon a wide array of scholarly traditions including postcolonial/decolonial theory, critical legal theory, law and literature and postmodernism. Speci c research projects have looked at the relationship between international drug prohibition and the (post)colonial structure of international law. In addition, Dr Koram is also embarking on a new research project that explores Brexit and Imperial Amnesia in Britain. He is editor of The War on Drugs and the Global Colour Line (Pluto Press, 2019).
Nelson Maldonado-Torres
is a Professor at the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies and the Comparative Literature Program at Rutgers University. He is internationally recognised as one of the most important thinkers of the decolonial turn. He’s also a member of the Executive Board of the Frantz Fanon Foundation and Director of the Rutgers Advanced Institute for Critical Caribbean Studies. He is the author of Against War: Views from the Underside of Modernity, La descoloni- zación y el giro de(s)colonial, published by Universidad de La Tierra in Chiapas, and co-editor of Latin@s in the World System: Decolonization Struggles in the 21st Century, and has been working on the project Fanonian Meditations.
Dr Lara Sheehi
is a licensed clinical psychologist, scholar, activist, a Behavioral Health Policy Analyst, and Adjunct Professor of Clinical Psychology at George Washington University. Her areas of interest include cross-cultural psychology, forensic psychology, and psychological assessment. Her work focuses on decolonial struggles as well as power, racism, class and gender constructs and dynamics within Psychoanalysis. She was the guest-editor of the Psychoanalyst Activist Special Edition: 70th Anniversary of the Nakba series in 2018. Her most recent chapter, « The Islamophobic Normative Unconscious: Psychoanalytic Considerations » can be found in Islamophobia and Psychiatry: Recognition, Prevention, and Treatment. She is currently co-authoring a book with Stephen Sheehi, Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Theory and Practice in Palestine (Routledge). Lara is on the board of the USA-Palestine Mental Health Network. Currently, Dr. Lara Sheehi and Prof. Stephen Sheehi are writing Psychoanalysis under Occupation (forthcoming, Routledge).
Stephen Sheehi
is the Sultan Qaboos bin Said Chair of Middle East Studies at William & Mary College in Washington. He holds a joint appointment as Professor of Arabic Studies in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures and the Program of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (AMES) as well as a core member of the Asian-Paci c-Islander American Studies Program (APIA). He is also the Faculty Director of the Decolonizing Humanities Project. Prof. Sheehi’s work meets at the intersection of cultural, visual, art, and social history of the modern Arab world, starting with the late Ottoman Empire and the Arab Renaissance (al-nahdah al-‘arabiyah). His scholarly interests include photography theory, psy- choanalysis, decoloniality, Palestine, and Race and Islamophobia.He is the author of numerous articles, book chapters, and commentaries on photography, Arab modernity, decoloniality, race and Islamophobia in the United State, and Palestine, Israel, and settler-colonialism. He has published The Arab Imago: A Social History of Indigenous Photography, 1860-1910 (Princeton University Press, 2016) among other books.
Michael Walker
is a London-based producer, broadcaster and new media activist. He produces and hosts the TiskySour video podcast at Novara Media and used to host The Fix. His interests include electoral strategy, the theory and practice of populism and political communication. He is currently completing an M.A. at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
