Symposium Rationale

imageOn 6 December 2011, 50 years will have passed since the death of Frantz Fanon. Born in 1925 in the French colony of Martinique, Fanon's personal experiences of everyday life under colonialism would yield two of the most influential texts in anti-colonial revolutionary thought: Black Skin, White Masks (1952), and The Wretched of the Earth (1961).

Frantz Fanon is today one of the most widely known and influential Caribbean born theorists and revolutionary activists. His life and work, moving from the French Caribbean, to metropolitan France to Algeria in North Africa would have an impact on anti -colonial, anti-racist and liberation struggles as far and wide as Iran, South Africa, the Middle East, the Indian Ocean and the United States. But what of his impact on/in the Caribbean region of his birth? Can Fanon's work speak to the Caribbean's contemporary challenges: labor and migration; capitalism and globalization; and post-911 geopolitics? Can we trace Fanon's influence in the long struggle for Caribbean independence and sovereignty? Is Fanon relevant to examinations of the crucial foundations of Caribbean societies: slavery and the slave economy; colonialism and resistance to colonialism; race and the development of Creole society?

Symposium date and location: Friday, December 2, 2011 at Harry C. Moore Library and Information Centre, COB

This event is free and open to the public.

Critical Caribbean Symposium Series Rationale

The mission of the Critical Caribbean Symposium Series is to engage scholars from The Bahamas, the Caribbean, and beyond from a wide range of disciplines, in dialogues and conversations around the many social, political, cultural, economic, and environmental challenges facing the region today. The series will contribue significantly to establishing the College of the Bahamas as a center of critical debate and knowledge production in the fields of Postcolonial, Caribbean, and African Diasporic Studies. This series goes a long way in fulfilling The College's mandate as the national teriary institution to foster the intellectual development of students (and the wider community) by encouraging critical analysis and independent thought.