Fanon and the Crisis of European Man

Written in celebration of Frantz Fanon's 70th birthday, this text analyzes the work of Fanon as an existential-phenomenological philosopher of human sciences and liberation. Gordon deploys Fanon's work to illuminate how the "bad faith" of European science and civilization has philosophically stymied the project of liberation. He explores: the problems of historical salvation; the dynamics of oppression; the motivation behind contemporary European obstruction of the advancement of a racially just world; the forms of anonymity that pervade racist theorizing; and the reasons behind nonviolent transition to post-colonialism. Drawing on Fanon's existential phenomenology, his philosophical anthropology and his theories of violence, Gordon extends his analysis to the relationship between tragic literature and anti-colonial literature.