Frantz Fanon Centenary Conference - Call for Papers

14 August 2025

About the Conference

Born on July 20, 1925, Frantz Fanon – the renowned Martinique anti-colonial thinker and activist – marks his 100th year since his birth in 2025. This centenary has sparked a global re-engagement with his ideas and legacy. In Nigeria, the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD–West Africa) and the Council for the Development of Social Science in Africa (CODESRIA) are, in collaboration Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the University of Jos, Nigeria, and the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD), commemorating the milestone by hosting a major centenary event.

The centenary conference to be convened in Nigeria will focus on the relevance of Fanon’s insights to Africa’s present struggles, especially in light of warnings from thinkers like Rosa Luxemburg, Andre Gorz, and Claude Ake about Africa’s marginalisation in the global order. Fanon’s analyses of colonial legacies, elite complicity, and psychological alienation offer critical frameworks for examining the continent’s enduring marginalization and underdevelopment and offer poignant lessons on the challenges facing progressive movements.

The conference seeks to re-evaluate Fanon’s contributions through interdisciplinary and transnational lenses, exploring themes such as African subjectivity, identity, racism, violence, and the quest for a ‘New Humanism’. Central to the discussions will be alternative epistemologies, structural transformation, Pan-Africanism in a rapidly changing global context, and radical forms of resistance. Scholars, activists, artists, and policymakers are thus invited to participate in envisioning new pathways for Africa’s future.

Conference Theme:

Fanon and the African Condition: Reflections on an Enduring Legacy.

Conference Dates:

28th – 29th October 2025 (arrival 27th and departure 30th October 2025)

Venue:

Faculty of Social Science Auditorium, University of Jos, Nigeria

Host Institution(s):

Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD-West Africa) Nigeria, CODSERIA-Senegal, ASUU-Nigeria, University of Jos-Nigeria CITAD-Nigeria

Sub-Themes

We welcome abstracts and panel proposals that engage with, but are not limited to, the following sub-themes:

a) EncounteringFanon in African Epistemologies, Knowledge Production and Cultural Decolonisation

Towards methodological Fanon
African universities and intellectual traditions
The geopolitics of language and the African condition
Re-harvesting heritage, museums, memory, and African artifacts
Fanon and Marxism in analysing contemporary Africa

b) RemakingColonial Identity, Processes and Structures

The African elite
The legal superstructure
The state, security, militarization and violence
Citizenship, identity, and governance

c) Ethnicity, Class and Race in Fanon

Lessons from Fanon’s analysis of class struggle and elite collaboration
De-ethnicising identity politics and the coloniality of African nations
Dismantling the racialized global order and Africa’s position within it

d) Fanon and Identity Reconstitution:

Overcoming the crisis of Constitutional Design in Africa
Undermining colonial legal inheritances, Constitutionalism, state legitimacy
Locating Federalism, decentralization and management of diversity in Fanon

e) Instrumentalising theYouth, Popular Protest and New Decolonial Movements in Africa

Contemporary protest cultures: EndSARS, Lutte, FeesMustFall
Social media, digital activism, and youth political consciousness
Popular culture and expansion of the democratic space: Music, art, and culture

f) Labour Movements and the Politics of Change

Trade union activism and state repression
Informal labour, precarity, and workers’ resistance
Locating labour in contemporary liberation struggles
Migration, migrant workers and the anti-migration forces

g) Gender, Sexuality and Intersectional Decolonization

Patriarchy, African feminisms, indigenous gender systems
Positioning the intersection of gender, class, and race in contemporary Africa

h) Pan-Africanism From the Fanonist Gaze

Fanon’s critique of post-independence nationalism
Continental unity, regional integration, and geopolitical challenges
Pan-Africanism from below: youth, diasporic African solidarities and transnational activism
The political economy of African unity

i) The Global Order in the Image of Fanon

Signifying Africa: Fanon and ‘Africa Rising’
Revisiting African Responses to Persisting Neoliberal Pressures
In search of alternatives: Lessons from the Dar es Salaam, Kenyan, Nigerian and other previous debates
China and the South-South cooperation Paradigm
Contesting multilateralism
Counterterrorism: Situating militarism and foreign military bases

Submission Guidelines

(a) Individual Paper Proposals: Submit a 250–300-word abstract, including title, author’s name, institutional affiliation, and contact details.

(b) Creative Contributions: We welcome short films, book reviews, photo essays, spoken word, posters or digital art projects thematically aligned with the conference.

Deadline for Abstracts (including for creative contributions): 31st August 2025

Full Papers Due: 30th September 2025

Conference Format

The conference will feature:

(a) Keynote address from leading African and global thinkers

(b) Individual authored presentations

(d) Creative contributions/exhibitions

(e) Book review sessions

Modes of Participation:

Physical and Virtual

Contact and Submission

Send proposals and inquiries to: fanoncentenarycommittee@gmail.com

Subject line: Echoes of Fanon Centenary