Repeating Islands

As part of the Cycle on Caribbean Social Thought, Casa de las Américas and its Center for Caribbean Studies invite the general public to the symposium “Actualidad de Frantz Fanon: Hacia un Humanismo Renovado” [The Relevance of Frantz Fanon: Towards a Renewed Humanism], to be held from October 24 to 28, 2011, at the Che Guevara Room at Casa de las Américas, in Havana, Cuba.

Organized in collaboration with the Frantz Fanon Foundation, with support from the UNESCO Regional Office of Culture for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the co-sponsorship of the Alliance Française, the French Institute, and the French Embassy in Cuba, the symposium will facilitate dialogue and multiple readings about life and work of Martinican intellectual Frantz Fanon.

Fifty years have passed since 1961 when Frantz Fanon died. Psychiatrist, philosopher, writer and political fighter, in his brief and intense life many paths converged to make him a thinker who was distinctly Caribbean and at the same time, universal. He was a pupil of Aimé Césaire, a classmate of Édouard Glissant, and friend of Patrice Lumumba. However, these relationships are not just expression of spatial or temporal proximity, but rather point towards a deep relationship linking them all in humanist and revitalizing thought. In the last half century, his thought and his active engagement with the ideas he defended in his books and articles, have not stopped inspiring theoretical reflection, critical awareness, and engagement.
In 2011, International Year of Afrodesdendants, Frantz Fanon’s thought is unique today due to the emergence of international events that have rekindled the spirit of emancipation and humanity, which he addressed in his two major works Peau noire, masques blancs [Black Skin, White Masks] and Les damnés de la terre [The Wretched of the Earth].

The symposium will be inaugurated by welcoming speeches by president of Casa de las Américas Roberto Fernández Retamar and director of the Center for Caribbean Studies Yolanda Wood Pujols. The keynote speech will be delivered by Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun. Presenters will include Aurelio Alonso, Ana Cairo, Ariel Camejo Vento, Jacques Chévrier, Jacques Coursil, Jacky Dahomay, Samuel Furé Davis, Alina Gonzáles Rams, Agustín Lao-Montes, Matthieu Renault, Félix Valdés, Camila Valdés León, and Tassadit Yacine, among others. Mireille Fanon, director of the Frantz Fanon Foundation, will also participate in the event.

The symposium includes screenings of two films on Fanon: Isaac Julien’s Frantz Fanon: Peau noire, masque blanc (1996) and Abdenour Zahzah’s Frantz Fanon: Mémoire d’asile (2008).

For more information, see http://www.casadelasamericas.org/centroestudios/eventos/2011/fanon/index.html