Whose Fanon?

Anthony C. Alessandrini Whose Fanon? (onAlan Read, ed., The Fact ofBlackness: Frantz Fanon and Visual Representation [Seattle: Bay, 1996]; Lewis R. Gordon, T. Denean SharpleyWhiting , and Reneé T. White, eds., Fanon: A Critical Reader [Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996]; Ato Sekyi-Otu, Fanon's Dialectic ofExperience [Cambridge : Harvard UP, 1996]; and "Finding Fanon: CriticalGenealogies," conference held at New York University, 11-2 Oct. 1996) It looked as though I wouldn't be able to get a ticket for the conference . Although "FindingFanon: Critical Genealogies" had notbeen widely advertised, a colleague who knew of my interest in Fanon had tipped me off to its existence. I called a week in advance to reserve a place, only to be told that my name would be added to the waiting list. Upon arriving at NYU, I was informed that there were in fact 85 people ahead of me on this list. So while I cooled my heels amidst the splendor of D'Agostino Hall, I had an opportunity to ponder the remarkable resurgence of interest in the work of Frantz Fanon. What is responsible for this resurgence? This was one of the questions which the conference, as weU as the three books under consideration here, tried to address. One earlier answer, provided by Henry Louis Gates in his influential essay "Critical Fanonism," is that "Fanon's current fascination for us has something to do with the convergence of the problematic of colonialism with that of subject formation " in his work (458). This position, which emphasizes Fanon's psychoanalytic contributions to the study of race and coloniaUsm, usuaUy includes references to his first book, Black Skin, White MasL·, the only text which Gates discusses in his essay. From another angle, Fanon's workhas provided inspiration to those trying to analyze neocolonialism in what Ngugi wa Thiong'o, during his talk at the conference , referred to as "the age of capitalist fundamentalism." This position more likely refers to Fanon's final book, The Wretched ofthe Earth. But perhaps most important is the rich and complex nature ofFanon's entire body of work, which contains both the positions above (and others as well) and thus invites continued readings and re-readings. If there is a downside to the ambiguity embedded in Fanon's work, it is that it has all too often inspired critics to expound theirown version of what Fanon "really meant"—or, in the case of his numerous detractors , to declare that they have found, once and for all, Fanon's single weak spot, his Achilles heel. So after spending time in a state of rela- 236 the minnesota review tive neglect, Fanon's work has recently found itself in the middle of all sorts of disciplinary, methodological, and theoretical debates, especially in the field of cultural studies. The question about his work has changed from "Who's Fanon?" to "Whose Fanon?" I did eventually manage to get a seat at the conference, and found another indication of the Fanon resurgence in the caliber of the participants . Anyone involved in radical cultural poUtics could find a hero (or heroes) in the lineup at "Finding Fanon": Maryse Condé, Teresa de Lauretis, Manrhia Diawara, James Forman, Stuart Hall, Isaac Julien, Robin D. G. Kelley, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, EUa Habiba Shohat, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, among others. The conflicts that arose at the conference and in these three books reveal a battle over Fanon's legacy which has had the effect ofkeeping the field of "Fanon Studies" an interesting and hvely place (in addition to the books reviewed here, at least four other books on Fanon have appeared recently or wül be appearing this year (see Alessandrini; Gibson; Gordon ; Sharpley-Whiting). More important, perhaps, these continuing debates speak to some of the most pressing issues of contemporary cultural politics. The first piece in The FactofBlackness—a collection of papers, panels , and visual workpresented at an earlierconference, "Working with Fanon," held at the Institute ofContemporaryArts in London in 1995— addresses the question of the Fanon renaissance head on. Stuart Hall's essay, entitled "TheAfter-life of Frantz Fanon," has as its subtitle "Why Fanon? Why Now? Why Black Skin, White Masks?" This piece alone is worth the price...