Born in Martinique, Frantz Fanon (1925–61) trained as a psychiatrist in Lyon before taking up a post in colonial Algeria. He had already experienced racism as a volunteer in the Free French Army, in which he saw combat at the end of the Second World War. In Algeria, Fanon came into contact with the Front de Libération Nationale, whose ruthless struggle for independence was met with exceptional violence from the French forces. He identified closely with the liberation movement, and his poli...

The classic biography of the radical French philosopher with a new afterword by acclaimed Foucault scholar Stuart Elden.When he died of an AIDS-related condition in 1984, Michel Foucault had become the most influential French philosopher since the end of World War II. His powerful studies of the creation of modern medicine, prisons, psychiatry, and other methods of classification have had a lasting impact on philosophers, historians, critics, and novelists the worl...

“We know that communism is the right hypothesis. All those who abandon this hypothesis immediately resign themselves to the market economy, to parliamentary democracy—the form of state suited to capitalism—and to the inevitable and ‘natural’ character of the most monstrous inequalities.”—Alain BadiouAlain Badiou’s “communist hypothesis,” first stated in 2008, cut through the cant and compromises of the past twenty years to reconceptualize the Left. The hypothesis is a fres...

Winner of the 2024 RUSA Outstanding Reference AwardIntroduces students to African-American innovators and their contributions to art, entertainment, sports, politics, religion, business, and popular culture.While the achievements of such individuals as Barack Obama, Toni Morrison, and Thurgood Marshall are well known, many accomplished African Americans have been largely forgotten or deliberately erased from the historical record in America...

This book is a major contribution to our understanding of the condition of the immigrant and it will transform the reader’s understanding of the issues surrounding immigration. Sayad’s book will be widely used in courses on race, ethnicity, immigration and identity in sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, politics and geography.an outstanding and original work on the experience of immigration and the kind of suffering involved in living in a society and culture which...

In this sequel to A Critique of Modernity, Alain Touraine questions the social and cultural content of democracy today. At a time when state power is being increasingly eroded by the economic might of transnational capital, what possible value can we ascribe to a democratic idea that is defined merely as a set of guarantees against the totalitarian state?If democracy is to survive in the postcommunist world, Touraine argues, it must accomplish two urgent goals: It must somehow protect the ...

This essential volume provides an overview of and introduction to African American writers and literary periods from their beginnings through the 21st century.This compact encyclopedia, aimed at students, selects the most important authors, literary movements, and key topics for them to know.Entries cover the most influential and highly regarded African American writers, including novelists, playwrights, poets, and nonfiction writers. The book covers key pe...

Pocket Pantheon is an invitation to engage with the greats of postwar Western thought, such as Lacan, Sartre and Foucault, in the company of one of today’s leading political and philosophical minds. Alain Badiou draws on his encounters with this pantheon—his teachers, opponents and allies—to offer unique insights into both the authors and their work. These studies form an accessible, authoritative distillation of continental theory and a capsule history of a period in Western thou...

Throughout most of his career, Michel Foucault consistently refused to say much about himself and was reluctant to be defined in either professional or personal terms. His stance was ‘Do not ask who I am, and do not ask me to remain the same’. In the last years of his life, he changed his stance, gave many interviews and began to speak of an 'aesthetics of existence' in which ‘the life’ and ‘the works’ merged into one.In this new biography and critical work, David Macey argues that...

Intimate, in-depth portraits, interviews, and essays of America's black leaders-from the founding of the nation and Frederick Douglass to the 2008 presidential race and Barack Obama. Each figure is interconnected with the next, exploring themes of family and intergenerational community, spirituality, and diligence, activism, and struggle. These remarkable portraits reveal the true spirit of the American pioneers who forged much of the heart of this nation, but whose achievements have been ...

The Rights of Others examines the boundaries of political community by focusing on political membership - the principles and practices for incorporating aliens and strangers, immigrants and newcomers, refugees and asylum seekers into existing polities. Boundaries define some as members, others as aliens. But when state sovereignty is becoming frayed, and national citizenship is unravelling, definitions of political membership become much less clear. Indeed few issues in world politics toda...

"Fascinating. . . . [Graham] has made a major contribution both to African-American studies and the larger American picture." —New York TimesDebutante cotillions. Million-dollar homes. Summers in Martha's Vineyard. Membership in the Links, Jack & Jill, Deltas, Boule, and AKAs. An obsession with the right schools, families, social clubs, and skin complexion. This is the world of America’s Black upper class and the focus of the first book written abo...