Whither Fanon?

by David Marriott

Frantz Fanon may be most known for his more obviously political writings, but in the first instance, he was a clinician, a black Caribbean psychiatrist who had the improbable task of treating disturbed and traumatized North African patients during the wars of decolonization. Investigating and foregrounding the clinical system that Fanon devised in an attempt to intervene against negrophobia and anti-blackness, this book rereads his clinical and political work together, arguing that the two are mutually imbricated. For the first time, Fanon's therapeutic innovations are considered along with his more overtly political and cultural writings to ask how the crises of war affected his practice, informed his politics, and shaped his subsequent ideas. As David Marriott suggests, this combination of the clinical and political involves a psychopolitics that is, by definition, complex, difficult, and perpetually challenging. He details this psychopolitics from two points of view, focusing first on Fanon's sociotherapy, its diagnostic methods and concepts, and second, on Fanon's cultural theory more generally. In our present climate of fear and terror over black presence and the violence to which it gives rise, Whither Fanon? reminds us of Fanon's scandalous actuality and of the continued urgency of his message.

Genres: Theory, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Race

432 pages, Paperback

Published June 5, 2018

Reviews

[J]

Really thought the Hegel points would be better considering Marriott was a student of Gillian Rose but they seem mostly to harp on the canonical version of Hegel which is boring. (Even then the notion that dialectics is fundamentally anti-black is pretty ludicrous but whatever I blame Frankfurt school for making universality a bad word.) Otherwise I overall agree with the assessment of Fanon; extremely overcomplicated at times (at least it’s for mostly good ideas) but that’s just philosophy for you I guess. IMO the abyss (as the negation of the negation of racism) is already Hegel (again, not the Kojevean one [which Marriott also points out but ends up collapsing the two completely anyways?]) insofar as Hegel is not teleological, about mutual recognition, and sees contradiction as absolute rather than to be overcome (although I suppose this project would just make me an evil apologist of German Idealism since I am attempting to recover a useful reading of Hegel that doesn’t denounce the entire project as racist, or perhaps im just spending too much time online).

[Mills College Library]

199.729 M3597 2018

[A YOGAM]

David Marriotts „Whither Fanon?“ bricht mit der verbreiteten Lesart von Frantz Fanon als bloßem Polit-Revolutionär und rückt seine Rolle als Psychiater und klinischer Denker ins Zentrum. Marriott zeigt, wie Fanons psychiatrische Praxis während der Dekolonisierungskriege entscheidend zur Formung seiner politischen Theorie beitrug.
Im Mittelpunkt steht die enge Verbindung von klinischer Erfahrung, Soziotherapie und Kulturtheorie. Aus dieser Perspektive entwickelt Marriott das Bild einer komplexen „Psychopolitik“, in der der Kampf gegen Rassismus und „Negrophobie“ zugleich therapeutische, gesellschaftliche und politische Dimensionen annimmt.
So erscheint Fanons Werk nicht nur als Analyse kolonialer Gewalt, sondern auch als Versuch, die seelischen Verwüstungen des Kolonialismus zu verstehen und zu heilen. Marriotts Studie macht deutlich, wie aktuell Fanons Denken in einer Gegenwart bleibt, in der Gewalt gegen schwarze Präsenz weiterhin zum globalen Erfahrungsraum gehört.

[Tapji Garba]

This book is perfect. What more can I say?