Nigel Gibson Lecture

The Paulo Freire project of the Centre for Adult Education in the School of Education & Development (Faculty of Education), and the Church Land Programme, are delighted to announce that the eminent activist and scholar, Nigel Gibson, will be visiting the Pietermaritzburg campus at the end of this month.

WHEN: 30th May 2011, 2.30 - 4.15 pm. WHERE: Ronald MacMillan lecture theatre, Golf Road campus, Pietermaritzburg

2011 marks the 50th anniversary of 's death, and in this year Gibson has been central in bringing out two new books exploring the life, legacy and relevance of Fanon's work and politics. In this lecture, Gibson will be talking about his new book, Fanonian practices in South Africa: From to Abahlali baseMjondolo.

The book will be on sale at the venue, along with other related books. The seminar will be followed by drinks and snacks at the University Club.

Please RSVP Nonhlanhla Magubane at [email protected] Nigel Gibson was previously the Assistant Director of African Studies at Columbia University and a Research Associate in African-American Studies at Harvard University, and is currently Director of the Honors Program at Emerson College. He is one of the world’s leading theorists on the work of Frantz Fanon, and in 2009 was awarded the Frantz Fanon Prize by the Caribbean Philosophical Association in recognition of his overall body of work in Frantz Fanon studies, and especially his influential book Fanon: The Postcolonial Imagination.

Gibson was born in London, and was an active militant in the 1984 -1985 Miners' Strike. While in London he met South African exiles from the Black Consciousness Movement and, in conversation with the exiles, developed some influential academic work on the movement. He later moved to the United States where he worked with of the Marxist Humanism movement, and studied with .

Apart from his extensive work on Fanon, Gibson has edited a major collection of work on Theodor Adorno and is a co-editor of a new collection of work on Steve Biko. He is a member of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa and has addressed the United Nations.

Gibson’s key works include:

Rethinking Fanon: The Continuing Legacy (Humanity Books, 1999). Contested Terrains and Constructed Categories: Contemporary Africa in Focus (with George C. Bond) (Westview, 2002). Adorno: A Critical Reader (with Andrew Rubin) (Blackwell, 2002). Fanon: The Postcolonial Imagination (Polity, 2003). Challenging Hegemony: Social Movements and the Quest for a New Humanism in Post- Apartheid South Africa (Africa World Press, 2006). Biko Lives: Contesting the Legacies of Steve Biko (with Andile Mngxitama and Amanda Alexander) (Palgrave, 2008). Fanonian Practices in South Africa (UKZN, 2011) Living Fanon: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)