Writing at the height of the Algerian War of Independence, Frantz Fanon declared that “decolonization is always a violent phenomenon.” By thinking through Fanon’s writings, this seminar offers a parallel reading of the histories of violence in Europe to that of the colonized world since World War II.

With the aim to decolonize our reading of history, we juxtapose violent events, including the racialization of otherness, that are rarely read together: the Algerian War of Independence, the Jewish Holocaust, the “Négritude” Movement, the Palestinian Nakba, and racism and settler colonial violence in the US. To this end, we read anti-colonial struggles in the 1950s and 60s from the vantage point of the pressing issues of today through a conversation between Europe, North America, and the Middle East to re-imagine patterns of solidarity between racialized individuals and communities in colonial and postcolonial global settings.

Scholars registered in this course will visit the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the Holocaust Memorial Center in Detroit.

Course Requirements:

Reflection papers and final project

Intended Audience:

Majors or non-majors, upper-class students

Class Format:

Seminar