The assumption of negritude: Aime Cesaire, Frantz Fanon, and the vicious circle of racial politics

Parallax

Volumn 8, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 69-83

  Bernasconi, Robert ^a  

^a University of Memphis

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EID: 61249617192     PISSN: 13534645     EISSN: 1460700X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13534640210138946     Document Type: Review

References (59)

1. In Black Orpheus Sartre already distinguished between the subjective negritude of Aimé Césaire and an objective negritude that corresponds to Léopold Senghor. Jean-Paul Sartre, 'Orphée noir', in Léopold Sédar Senghor [ed], Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache de langue française (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1948), p. xv;
2. for English translation see Jean-Paul Sartre, 'Black Orpheus', trans. John MacCombie, in Robert Bernasconi [ed], Race (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), p.119.
3. Early contributions to what was to become the Negritude movement by Antillean women explore the same experience. See T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Negritude Women: Race Women, Race Consciousness, Race Letters (Minnesota: University of Michigan Press, 2002).
4. Frantz Fanon, Peau noire, masques blancs, (Paris: Seuil, 1975), pp.124-125;
5. for English translation see Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, trans. Charles Lam Markmann (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1967), p.153.
6. Translation modified. I have cited this edition of the French text because it is the most widely used. The English translation is often inadequate and where necessary I have corrected it. Rather than quote Markmann's inadequate translation of chapter 5, the crucial chapter for the understanding of Fanon's relation to Aimé Césaire, I have referred to a slightly different version published in 1951 as 'L'expérience vécue du Noir' in Esprit 19, no. 179 (May 1951), pp.657-679;
7. for English translation see, 'The Lived Experience of the Black', trans. Valentine Moulard, in Bernasconi [ed], Race, pp.184-201.
8. Fanon, 'L'expérience vécue du Noir', p.673;
9. 'The Lived Experience of the Black', p.196.
10. M. Dide and P. Guisaud, Psychiatrie du médecin praticien (Paris: Masson, 1922), p.107.
11. Fanon cites this book, although not this passage, in Fanon, Peau noire, masques blancs, p.148;
12. Black Skin, White Masks, p.183.
13. Frantz Fanon, Pour la revolution africaine (Paris: La Découverte, 2001), p.31;
14. for English translation see Frantz Fanon, Toward the African Revolution, trans. Haakon Chevalier (New York: Grove Press, 1967), p.21. Translation modified.
15. Fanon, Pour la revolution africaine, p.36;
16. Toward the African Revolution, p.27.
17. Paulette Nardal, 'Eveil de la Conscience de Race', La Revue du Monde Noire 6 (1932), p.27;
18. for English translation see, Paulette Nardal, 'The Awakening of Race Consciousness', trans. T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, in Bernasconi [ed], Race, p.108.
19. Aimé Césaire, Discours sur le colonialisme (Paris: Editions Réclamé, 1950), p.23;
20. for English translation see Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, trans. Joan Pinkham (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972), p.22. I have used the original edition as it was the only one available to Fanon in 1952. The English translation was made from the third revised and augmented edition published by Présence Africaine in 1955, but I have noted divergences from the 1950 version.
21. L. Senghor, 'Ce que l'homme noir apporte', in L'Homme de Couleur (Paris: Plon, 1939), pp.309-310.
22. Aimé Césaire, Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (Paris: Bordas, 1947), p.74;
23. for English translation see, Aimé Césaire, Notebook of a Return to My Native Land, trans. Mireille Rosello and Annie Pritchard (Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books, 1995), p.111. Fanon used the 1947 edition, but this translation was made from the 1956 edition.
24. Césaire, Cahier d'un retour au pays natal, pp.77-78;
25. Notebook of a Return to My Native Land, p.115.
26. Denis-Pierre de Pedrals, La vie sexuelle en Afrique noire (Paris: Payot, 1939), p.83
27. and A. M. Vergiat, Les rites secrets des primitives de l'Oubangui, (Paris: Payot, 1951), p.96. Fanon's reference corrected.
28. L. Senghor, Ce que l'homme noir apporte, p.295
29. Jean-Paul Sartre, Réflexions sur la question juive, (Paris: Gallimard, 1954), p.84;
30. for English translation see Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew, trans. George J. Becker (New York: Schocken, 1976), p.69.
31. Aimé Césaire, 'Victor Schoelcher et l'abolition de l'esclavage', in Victor Schoelcher, Esclavage et colonization (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1948), p.7.
32. Césaire, Discours sur le colonialisme, pp.41-43;
33. Discourse on Colonialism, pp.37-39.
34. Alioune Diop, 'NIAM M'PAYA ou de la FIN que dévorent les moyens', in Placide Tempels [ed], La philosophie Bantoue (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1949), p.11.
35. Cheikh Anta Diop, Nations Nègres et Culture, (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1954).
36. See also Aimé Césaire, Discours sur le colonialisme, (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1955);
37. Aimé Césaire, 'Et les chiens se taisaient', in Les armes miraculeuses (Paris: Gallimard, 1946), p.70;
38. for English translation see Aimé Césaire, And the Dogs were Silent', trans. Clayton Eshleman and Annette Smith, in Lyric and Dramatic Poetry, 1946-82 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1990), p.40.
39. Aimé Césaire, Et les chiens se taisaient, 68;
40. And the Dogs were Silent, p.39.
41. Sartre, Orphée noir, p. xlii;
42. Black Orpheus, p.138.
43. Black Orpheus, p.137.
44. Gabriel d'Arboussier, 'Une dangereuse mystification. La théorie de la negritude', Nouvelle Critique (June 1949), pp.38-39.
45. Frantz Fanon, Pour la revolution africaine, p.36;
46. Fanon, Peau noire, masuqes blancs, p.155;
47. Jean-Paul Sartre, Cahiers pour une morale (Paris: Gallimard, 1983), pp.369-370;
48. for English translation see Jean-Paul Sartre, Notebooks for an Ethics, trans. David Pellauer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), p.356.
49. Black Orpheus, p.139.
50. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, La structure du comportement (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1942), p.277;
51. for English translation see Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Structure of Behaviour, trans. Alden L. Fisher (London: Methuen, 1965), p.204.
52. Merleau-Ponty, La structure du comportement, pp.276-277;
53. The Structure of Behaviour, p.204.
54. There are questions about Fanon's reading of both novels, but see Richard Wright, Native Son (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1940), p.211
55. and Chester B. Himes, If He Hollers Let Him Go (New York: Doubleday, 1946), pp.221-222.
56. Aimé Césaire, Non-Vicious Circle, trans. Gregson Davis (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984), pp.142-143.
57. I take up this problem in 'Eliminating the Vicious Circle: Fanon's A Dying Colonialism in its Relation to his Other Major Texts, Philosophia Africana, vol. 4, no. 2 (2001) pp.17-25.
58. Karl Marx, 'Der achtzehnte Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte', Werke 8, (Berlin: Oretz, 1975), p.117;
59. for English translation see Karl Marx, 'The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte', Collected Works, vol. 11 (New York: International Publishers, 1978), p.106.