Blackwell Reference Online

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Frantz Fanon (1925–1961 ce ) was born on June 20, 1925, on the island of Martinique. He grew up in Martinique, which then, and throughout Fanon's short life, was a French colony. In 1947, he proceeded from there first to Paris and then to Lyon, where he studied to be a psychiatrist. He qualified in 1951, and thereafter began to practice first in Saint Ylie, later in Pontorson, Normandy, and ultimately at Blida-Joinville, Algeria, where he began to work in November 1953. In Blida-Joinville, he was Chef de service. He would later resign this position in 1956, and the reasons for his walking away from this job had a lot to do with some of the philosophical views that he had formulated and for which he is important to contemporary philosophy. His philosophy is expounded in what follows under four headings: the philosophy of colonialism; the question of violence; national liberation and culture; a new humanism. Fanon's two major works, Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth , have served at different times and places as manuals for all kinds of radical struggles for social transformation, especially of the anti-colonial type. The appropriation and dissemination of Fanon's writings by revolutionaries and assortments of social activists have tended to have a chilling effect on their reception in professional philosophical circles. However, it is a mistake to ignore ... log in or subscribe to read full text