A Book Launch and Discussion with Anthony Alessandrini, author of Finding Something Different: Frantz Fanon and the Future of Cultural Politics (2014).

Finding Something Different: Frantz Fanon and the Future of Cultural Politics examines how the work of a revolutionary writer such as Fanon might be best appropriated for contemporary political and cultural issues. Reviewing the field of “Fanon studies” and bringing Fanon into conversation with such figures as Edward Said, Michel Foucault, Jamaica Kincaid, and Paul Gilroy, as well as with the popular uprisings of the “Arab Spring,” this book is meant to engage readers across a wide range of disciplines. It concludes by arguing that a re-evaluation of Fanon’s life and work can provide us with a particular set of lessons about solidarity, lessons that are crucial for the political struggles of today. Finding Something Different: Frantz Fanon and the Future of Cultural Politics is inspired by Fanon’s unsparing struggle against the depredations of racism and colonialism, and his lifelong commitment to creating a different future.

With discussants J. Michael Dash, Professor of French, Social and Cultural Analysis, and Comparative Lit at NYU and Kandice Chuh, Professor of English at the Graduate Center.

Anthony Alessandrini is Associate Professor of English at Kingsborough Community and the MA Program in Middle Eastern Studies at The Graduate Center, where he is also a member of the Committee on Globalization and Social Change. He is the editor of Frantz Fanon: Critical Perspectives and the co-editor of “Resistance Everywhere”: The Gezi Protests and Dissident Visions of Turkey, and has recent/forthcoming articles in Foucault Studies, Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, The Journal of Pan African Studies, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, and Social Text: Periscope and book chapters in Mediating the Arab Uprisings, Retrieving the Human: Reading Paul Gilroy, and Visions of Tahrir in Egypt and Beyond. He is a Co-Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine, an online publication focusing on the politics and culture of the Middle East.

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