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Frantz Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricades
Few figures loom as large in the intellectual history of revolution and postcolonialism than Frantz Fanon. An intellectual who devoted his life to activism, he utilized his deep knowledge of psychology and philosophy in the service of the movement for democratic participation and political sovereignty in his native Martinique and around the world.
With Franz Fanon , Peter Hudis presents a penetrating critical biography of the activist’s life and work. Countering the prevailing belief that Fanon’s contributions to modern thought can be wholly defined by an advocacy of violence, Hudis presents his work instead as an integrated whole, showing that its nuances—and thus its importance—can only be appreciated in light of Fanon’s efforts to fuse philosophical theory and actual practice. By taking seriously Fanon’s philosophical and psychological contributions, as well as his political activism, Hudis presents a powerful and perceptive new view of the man and his achievement.
This brief, richly perceptive introduction to Fanon will give new force to his ideas, his life, and his example for people engaged in radical political theory and taking action against oppression around the world today.
With Franz Fanon , Peter Hudis presents a penetrating critical biography of the activist’s life and work. Countering the prevailing belief that Fanon’s contributions to modern thought can be wholly defined by an advocacy of violence, Hudis presents his work instead as an integrated whole, showing that its nuances—and thus its importance—can only be appreciated in light of Fanon’s efforts to fuse philosophical theory and actual practice. By taking seriously Fanon’s philosophical and psychological contributions, as well as his political activism, Hudis presents a powerful and perceptive new view of the man and his achievement.
This brief, richly perceptive introduction to Fanon will give new force to his ideas, his life, and his example for people engaged in radical political theory and taking action against oppression around the world today.
184 pages, Hardcover
First published August 15, 2015
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About the author
Peter Hudis
18 books19 followersPeter Hudis is Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Oakton Community College.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 18, 2021
A general overview of Fanon’s life and ideas that stands as a reasonable introduction to his work. A good starting point that should encourage you to seek a little more depth, and more depth is required if you are to get an accurate picture of his ideas. Despite that, it's a good read.
December 19, 2016
At about 200 pages this is about the best book on Fanon's life and work out there. Peter Hudis, writing out of the Marxist-humanist tradition, uses that to frame the relevance of Fanon, seeing the ‘spectre of Fanon’ in the Black Lives Matter movement, imperialist wars in the Middle East, political Islam and the New Jim Crow. For him what makes Fanon one of the foremost thinkers of the twentieth century is ‘his persistent effort to bring to the surface the quest for a new humanity in the social struggles of his time’ (p. 3) as we need to do for ours.
Fanon was by profession a psychiatrist and certainly used all the tools available to him to treat patients, he was, as always, critical of the medical model and it was his understanding of mental illness as a loss of freedom resulting in alienation from communal life (taken from Marx's early writings) that would mark his life’s work in the clinical setting.
Hudis puts Hegel at the centre of his reading of Fanon's first major work, Black Skin White Masks, the Master/Slave and ‘dialectical movement from the individual to the universal through the particular.’ Fanon, he notes, starts with the zero point of his own experience but it’s in affirming the latter that he seeks to create a universal humanism. This is not to say that he ignores Fanon's readings of the phenomenological and existentialism traditions to demonstrate that the end of racism implies a ‘restructuring of the world’.
Hudis argues that Fanon remained overly sceptical of the French left and ended to underestimate the important of the resistance by individual activists like Francis Jeanson. There was a widespread tendency to ignore the issue of racism or seek to defer its priority to the “real” fight which Fanon denounced as a kind of neo-colonialism. Of course there were outstanding individuals doing important solidarity work – Sartre, De Beauvoir, Merleau Ponty, Lyotard spoke out but these were exceptional (for e.g. Foucault remained silent on the issue). Often this was extended to a critique of the entire French working class – but was at other times more balanced and recognised or at least hoped that their solidarity would emerge more strongly.
Hudis makes clear in Fanon's last work, Wretched of the Earth, that as for Marx the aim of the proletarian revolution was to end classes so for Fanon the aim of national liberation was not to find a new home for Blackness (a la Negritude) but to abolish the conditions requiring its existence: ‘the death of race is indeed the goal of national liberation struggle’. (p. 95) but this goal cannot be achieved by ignoring particularity of racial identity or national demands but by moving through them. For Fanon the solution to problem of racism lay not in abstract identity but in a concrete struggle for (national) liberation through which the struggle for universal human emancipation could develop – and while this is contradictory (and can fall back in Sartre’s ‘weak stage’) it is a contradiction that arises out of the struggle itself.
It is Fanon’s defence of armed struggle (reduced to the issue of ‘violence’) that has been the focus of discussion of this last text but it entered debates on the Left about the role of various classes in liberation struggles and the need for liberation to be seized by the masses. It amounts to a scathing critique of the emergent colonial bourgeoisie that has proved prophetic, argues for reparations as well as the importance of the role of culture in struggle. And it concludes with Fanon’s psychiatric case notes outline the terrible human cost of the struggle. As mentioned all these authors seek to make Fanon our contemporary. This means understanding his context as a man of the Left and recognising that a movement is Fanonian insofar as it ‘re-examines the question of humanity, rejuvenates it, and actualises it.’ (p. 139)
Fanon was by profession a psychiatrist and certainly used all the tools available to him to treat patients, he was, as always, critical of the medical model and it was his understanding of mental illness as a loss of freedom resulting in alienation from communal life (taken from Marx's early writings) that would mark his life’s work in the clinical setting.
Hudis puts Hegel at the centre of his reading of Fanon's first major work, Black Skin White Masks, the Master/Slave and ‘dialectical movement from the individual to the universal through the particular.’ Fanon, he notes, starts with the zero point of his own experience but it’s in affirming the latter that he seeks to create a universal humanism. This is not to say that he ignores Fanon's readings of the phenomenological and existentialism traditions to demonstrate that the end of racism implies a ‘restructuring of the world’.
Hudis argues that Fanon remained overly sceptical of the French left and ended to underestimate the important of the resistance by individual activists like Francis Jeanson. There was a widespread tendency to ignore the issue of racism or seek to defer its priority to the “real” fight which Fanon denounced as a kind of neo-colonialism. Of course there were outstanding individuals doing important solidarity work – Sartre, De Beauvoir, Merleau Ponty, Lyotard spoke out but these were exceptional (for e.g. Foucault remained silent on the issue). Often this was extended to a critique of the entire French working class – but was at other times more balanced and recognised or at least hoped that their solidarity would emerge more strongly.
Hudis makes clear in Fanon's last work, Wretched of the Earth, that as for Marx the aim of the proletarian revolution was to end classes so for Fanon the aim of national liberation was not to find a new home for Blackness (a la Negritude) but to abolish the conditions requiring its existence: ‘the death of race is indeed the goal of national liberation struggle’. (p. 95) but this goal cannot be achieved by ignoring particularity of racial identity or national demands but by moving through them. For Fanon the solution to problem of racism lay not in abstract identity but in a concrete struggle for (national) liberation through which the struggle for universal human emancipation could develop – and while this is contradictory (and can fall back in Sartre’s ‘weak stage’) it is a contradiction that arises out of the struggle itself.
It is Fanon’s defence of armed struggle (reduced to the issue of ‘violence’) that has been the focus of discussion of this last text but it entered debates on the Left about the role of various classes in liberation struggles and the need for liberation to be seized by the masses. It amounts to a scathing critique of the emergent colonial bourgeoisie that has proved prophetic, argues for reparations as well as the importance of the role of culture in struggle. And it concludes with Fanon’s psychiatric case notes outline the terrible human cost of the struggle. As mentioned all these authors seek to make Fanon our contemporary. This means understanding his context as a man of the Left and recognising that a movement is Fanonian insofar as it ‘re-examines the question of humanity, rejuvenates it, and actualises it.’ (p. 139)
March 20, 2016
Solid book about the life of Frantz Fanon. Gives the average person a clear understanding of what Fanon stood for. His most celebrated work "Black Skin, White Masks" was a masterpiece that gave the oppressed a reason to fight, rather than conform to colonialism ideals. Excellent piece of work. Very well written and researched.
May 30, 2018
(More of a 2.5*) A useful guide to much of his thinking, but I was hoping for more about his personal life. Also, I don't think that Hudis should have been the one to write this, he ends up being guilty at times of the very reductionism that Fanon would have called out.
March 13, 2022
Useful as an overview but the author clearly tries to tie Fanon to his own (broadly Trotskyist) perspective and has a tendency to chide Fanon when he can't find a way to read him to his liking.
Hudis is also a Rosa Luxemburg scholar and most mentions of her here feel needless and tacked on. As someone also interested in Rosa, it still came off a bit confused and beside the point to compare the two on multiple occasions.
Hudis is also a Rosa Luxemburg scholar and most mentions of her here feel needless and tacked on. As someone also interested in Rosa, it still came off a bit confused and beside the point to compare the two on multiple occasions.
May 25, 2017
very interesting though impersonal account of the life of FF. nothing about wife and kids etc which do go to make a life - lots of detail about his writing and philosophy though
April 23, 2019
The best book on its subject.
February 29, 2020
Excellent, short, political read. Left perspective on his philosophy, anti-colonialism etc. No patience at all with bulshit liberal hand-wringing about his commitment to violence in liberation struggle.
October 15, 2024
فانون بيكتب وبيناقش أمور وأفكار وكأنه عايش معانا في 2024 وفي العالم العربي كمان، مش معقول الحقيقة بقالنا 70 سنة محلك سر!
عامةً هلخص بعض أفكار الكتاب في مراجعة قريبة، الكتاب جميل وبيلخص أبرز أفكار وسياقات فانون من العنصرية والاستعمار والتحرر والعنف
عامةً هلخص بعض أفكار الكتاب في مراجعة قريبة، الكتاب جميل وبيلخص أبرز أفكار وسياقات فانون من العنصرية والاستعمار والتحرر والعنف
June 8, 2018
Excellent summary and exploration of Fanon's life and thinking.
August 17, 2022
Always fashioned myself a Marxist because my first hero Che was one. From Nkrumah I became convinced of Pan Africanism. Per Fanon I now know I don't have to be conflicted between either.
August 20, 2022
phenomenology can be anti racist becauseof Fanon
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews