The Fact of Blackness: Frantz Fanon and Visual Representation

Cultural Studies. African American Studies. Visual Arts. THE FACT OF BLACKNESS: FRANTZ FANON AND VISUAL REPRESENTATION is a collection of essays that create a far-reaching and original dialogue between cultural theory and visual practice. The rich insights which emerge from this collection explain why Frantz Fanon's seminal texts of the 1950s and 60s, Black Skin White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth, have re-emerged at the forefront of postcolonial studies. Ranging between the contemporary politics of location, everyday traumas of social inequality, and the structures and technologies of representation, these dialogues re-affirm the contention of Fanon's writings: that narrative, the media, image and symbol lie at the very heart of the practice of politics and social knowledge. Includes essays by Homi K. Bhabha, Stuart Hill, bell hooks, Kobena Mercer, Françoise Vergès, Lola Young, and many others.

Alan Read is Director of Talks at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. From 1983 to 1991 he was Director of Rotherhithe Theatre Workshop and is author of Theatre and Everyday Life: An Ethics of Performance.