For release: February 2, 2011
For press information, contact Jonathan Judaken, 901-488-7475

The Marcus W. Orr Center for the Humanities at the University of Memphis will host an event to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the publication of Frantz Fanon’s book The Wretched of the Earth on Friday, Feb. 11^th, at 4 p.m. in the University Center River Room. The event is free and open to the public.

The celebration concludes a series of events focused on Fanon’s life, ideas, and published work. Fanon was a French psychiatrist, philosopher, and revolutionary. Political activist and scholar Angela Davis has called him “...this century’s most compelling theorist of racism and colonialism.”

“The Wretched of the Earth had a major impact on civil rights, anticolonialism, and black consciousness movements around the globe,” Davis said.

The signature speaker for the evening will be Lewis Gordon, the Laura H. Carnell Professor of Philosophy at Temple University. Gordon is the most famous living Africana existentialist. His work focuses on the philosophy of race, revolution, and decolonization. Gordon’s books include Fanon and the Crisis of European Man: An Essay on Philosophy and the Human Sciences and Fanon: A Critical Reader. He will discuss Fanon’s life and times and explain how his classic 1961 book contributes to the ongoing struggle for freedom.

The lecture will be followed by a question-and-answer session. Parking is available in the Zach Curlin garage, adjacent to the University Center.

More information about events or programs of the Marcus W. Orr Center is available online at http://memphis.edu/moch.

For answers to specific questions, call Jonathan Judaken at 901-488-7475.