“Decolonizing the mind!”: Césaire, Fanon, Glissant
In this course, we will study the aspects of “counter discourse”, a term borrowed from Bernard Mouralis’s Les Contre-discours [1975, 2011], which contributed to “decolonizing the mind” (Ngugi Wa Thiongo) in postcolonial literature written in French.
In order to answer Arthur de Gobineau’s De l’inégalité des races humaines [1853, 1855], Haitian Antenor Firmin wrote De l’égalité des races humaines (Anthropologie positive) [1885], which focuses on the history of Africa and the black slaves of his Caribbean country since the end of the XIXth century. Several essayists have continued to deconstruct the European knowledge created during the colonial era. In some articles of Revue Tropiques (1941-1945), Martinican Suzanne Cesaire discovers black local philosophy. Martinican Aimé Cesaire denounces the unthought of colonial thought in Discours sur le colonialisme (1948-1955). Martinican Frantz Fanon reveals the psychological consequences of colonial domination in Peau noire, masques blancs (1952). In Soleil de la conscience (1956), Martinican Edouard Glissan insists on the autonomy of the slaves’ narrative discourses in the global world.
Required texts:
● Aimé CÉSAIRE, Discours sur le colonialisme suivi de Discours sur la négritude, Paris,
Présence africaine, 2004 [1955] ISBN 978-2-7087-0531-9
● Frantz FANON, Peau noire, masques blancs, Paris, Seuil/Points Essais, 1952 ISBN
978-2-7578-4168-6
● Edouard GLISSANT, Soleil de la conscience, Paris, Gallimard, 1997 [Seuil, 1956] ISBN
978-2-0707-4620-0