By Gavin Arnall
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Recommended by H茅l猫ne B. Ducros
In this timely book and in response to the recent English publication of Alienation and Freedom 鈥昦 compilation of some of Frantz Fanon鈥檚 previously published and unpublished works鈥 Gavin Arnall urgently calls for a rereading and rediscovery of Frantz Fanon鈥檚 oeuvre drawing on a new holistic gaze that highlights the radicalism of his writings through an exploration of Fanon鈥檚 lesser studied internal divisions. While Fanon鈥檚 intellectual inconsistencies and contradictions have been amply discussed before, by theorizing a split in Fanon鈥檚 thought, Arnall is able to replace as central to his work the project of change, or mutation, or 诲茅辫补蝉蝉别尘别苍迟, and what Achille Mbembe has called his metamorphic thought. Arnall鈥檚 exploration of Fanon鈥檚 dividedness in his seeking of a new mode for society rests on an acknowledgement that the overt dialectical dominant side of the split has been the focus of much attention, while the other 鈥搕he 鈥渦nderground鈥 Fanon鈥攈as been generally occulted. For him, this 鈥渟ubterranean鈥 Fanonian mode of thinking is nondialectical, or even antidialectical, as it is not concerned with unity nor with reconciliation and aims to reach beyond universality principles. Through his close reading of a selection of Fanon鈥檚 texts, Arnall also identifies how these two Fanons are in constant dialogue and how the different dimensions of their relationship with one another get shaped. He invites readers to read Fanon鈥檚 ambivalence as being the result of the tension between the dominant Fanon and the alternative Fanon and makes intelligible the struggle between the dialectical and non-dialectical moments in Fanon鈥檚 writings, at the same time as he critiques how different scholars have put limits on the understanding of Fanon鈥檚 oeuvre by emphasizing one Fanon over the other.
This book will be especially appreciated by readers with an already solid understanding of Fanonian thought. It is an important contribution to Fanon studies, particularly relevant in the contemporary context of Black Lives Matter and other socio-political resistance movements across the world. Arnall鈥檚 book will undoubtedly appeal to a wide array of scholars who want to build on or challenge their previous interpretations of Fanon and sharpen their understanding of the ways in which Fanon鈥檚 writings participate in current debates such as those on post-coloniality, decolonial thought, critical race theory, or Afro-pessimism. While the book does not intend to be a complete restating of Fanon as resolutely internally contrasted, it succeeds in opening the field for a reformulation of Fanon鈥檚 thinking that examines its implications in effecting change and offers possibilities for unifying Fanon studies.
By Timothy Scott Brown
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Recommended by Nick Ostrum
Timothy Scott Brown鈥檚 Sixties Europe is part of a wave of scholarship that has emerged over the last few years commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the 1968 student movement. It distinguishes itself, however, in its broad perspective of the long 1968鈥昦nd the long 1960s鈥昦s a transnational phenomenon that spanned Europe East and West and North and South, and found wide inspiration in the Kronstadt rebels, the Situationist and Fluxus movements, the 1956 reform movements in Hungary and Poland, the Frankfurt School, the global anticolonial movement, Third Worldism, and other non-doctrinaire and non-Soviet left-wing movements. Though still largely informed by Marxism, the movement nevertheless deviated from Marxism鈥檚 traditional focus on industrial class politics to self-realization through anti-consumerist and anti-establishmentarian counter-cultural activities. This dimension of the movement was more pronounced in Western Europe, as conditions in Eastern Europe and Iberia were more overtly oppressive. Nevertheless, a common resistance to authoritarianism, whether embodied in the police state itself or the hegemonic capitalist and communist ideologies of the state, served as a primary bond that connected movements across the Iron Curtain.
For such a short book, Sixties Europe鈥檚 subject matter is impressively wide. Nevertheless, Brown鈥檚 focus is pointed and he offers important correctives to the conventional historical narrative through mapping cross-border discourses and dispelling claims that young Eastern Europeans simply dismissed the New Left as privileged and na茂ve armchair communists. Although Brown also neglects the Western movement鈥檚 underwhelming response to the Prague Spring and both movements鈥 fetishization of Maoism鈥昦n authoritarian system in its own right鈥Sixties Europe otherwise grapples with the complexities, contradictions, and expansiveness of Europe鈥檚 New Left effectively and with a mix of admiration and appropriately critical nuance.
Published on December 8, 2020.
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