Sylvia Wynter, Franz Fanon, and The Consciousness We Need
Tuesday 25 April | 17:30 - 19:00 | Room G01, House 10, School of English Join us for a discussion of Sylvia Wynter’s work on diasporic ‘double consciousness’, black resistance, and what both mean for us and our perspectives on the world. In ' Towards the Sociogenic Principle: Fanon, the Puzzle of Conscious Experience of "Identity" and What it's Like to be "Black" ', Wynter argues that humans are not biologically determined bodies, but beings for whom there is something which it is 'like' to be them. This consciousness is not universal, but depends on social position and the stories told about self and other. These issues have been acute for racially discriminated people, and form an entry-point for Fanon and Wynter’s ‘sociogenic principle’ in the experience of identity. Combining sociology with history, psychology with philosophy of mind, continental with analytic tradition, and ethnography and postcolonial thought, Wynter’s rich, complex tex...