Dr. Bryan Mukandi

Title

Acting out/Disalienation

Abstract

Across his body of work Franz Fanon, psychiatrist and political philosopher, grapples with the question of dis-alienation. While recognising the part played by our existential condition of being ‘thrown’ into a world neither of our making nor of our choosing; Fanon’s preferred site of intervention is the social realm, which he thinks can be more or less accomodating, more or less alienating. In this paper, I intend to think through Fanon’s project alongside the work of two African dramatists and an anthropologist. Wole Soyinka, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and Anne-Maria Makhulu, in their various ways, stage facets of the will to disalienation. By working through these alongside Fanon’s project, I hope to arrive at some insights that help to make sense of the present.

Bio

I practiced medicine in a resource poor, African context before turning my attention to academic philosophy. My focus has remained on the…