Decolonizing Madness: The Psychiatric Writings of Frantz Fanon

Product description The Martiniquian-born theorist, revolutionary, and psychiatrist Frantz Fanon was a foundational figure in postcolonial thought and practice, and along with Foucault and Lacan, he remains an indispensable thinker on the complex interrelationships of identity, politics, and psychoanalysis. His biographers have always noted that his medical career was not a profession he chose by chance but one that reflected his humanist convictions, yet his psychiatric work has only received sustained attention in recent years - and then only from scholars fluent in French. Now available for the first time in English, the pieces collected here demonstrate in concrete ways how Fanon's conception of a radical psychiatry based in human liberation and self-activity was directly related to his philosophy and politics. They offer specific content for ongoing debates over psychiatry and politics in contemporary society, and together form an essential text for anyone working in postcolonial studies, Fanon studies, history, psychiatry, and politics. About the Author Nigel C. Gibson is the Director of the Honors Program at Emerson College. He is one of the leading scholars of the work of Frantz Fanon, and the author of Biko Lives!: Contesting the Legacies of Steve Biko (Palgrave 2008), Living Fanon: Global Perspectives (Palgrave 2011), and Fanonian Practices in South Africa (Palgrave 2012).