"Black Ressentiment and the Politics of the Death Drive: A Fanonian Meditation" with Zahi Zalloua
Part of BGSP's Fall 2024 | Spring 2025 Speaker Series: "Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Race, Racism and Culture"
Virtual event via Zoom
This talk will pursue Black ‘subjectivity’ in relation to the death drive. First, this presentation will situate the death drive as social death in Fanon’s elaboration of the “zone of nonbeing,” a concept that continues to elicit interpretations from new and seasoned readers of Black Skin, White Masks. Second, it will turn attention to the affective register, to civil society’s libidinal economy, attending to the circulation of Black ressentiment as a response not only to negrophobia but also to liberal democracy’s brand of negrophilia, encapsulated in its promotion of identity politics and neoliberal grammar of victimhood. Lastly, the session will return to the politics of the death drive and consider its valences, focusing on the ways supplementing the death drive with a Fanon-inflected, dialecticized vision of Black ressentiment ruthlessly troubles narcissistic investments in identity, none more appealing than that of the victim.
Presenter
Zahi Zalloua is a ‘Cushing Eells Professor of Philosophy and Literature’ and a professor of Indigeneity, Race, and Ethnicity Studies at Whitman College and Editor of The Comparatist. His most recent work includes The Politics of the Wretched: Race, Reason, and Ressentiment (2024), Solidarity and the Palestinian Cause: Indigeneity, Blackness, and the Promise of Universality (2023), Being Posthuman: Ontologies of the Future (2021), Žižek on Race: Toward an Anti-Racist Future (2020), Theory’s Autoimmunity: Skepticism, Literature, and Philosophy (2018), and Continental Philosophy and the Palestinian Question: Beyond the Jew and the Greek (2017).
Discussant
The Discussant for this event is TBA.
OBJECTIVES
The participant will be able to:
- Differentiate between Freud’s and Lacan’s accounts of the death drive.
- Explain how Fanon’s key concepts relate to the psychoanalytic notion of the death drive.
- Describe how Black ressentiment differs from a Nietzschean understanding of ressentiment.
2 CE Units / Clock Hours
BGSP is authorized to provide CEs for: Psychologists (all levels), Social Workers, Counselors
Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. BGSP maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 5676. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
Application for social work continuing education credits is being submitted. Please contact us at continuinged@bgsp.edu for the status of social work CE accreditation.
For information on continuing education credits for nurses, social workers, or marriage and family counseling, call (617) 277-3915.
Direct inquiries may be made regarding the accreditation status by NECHE to the administrative staff of the institution. Individuals may also contact: New England Commission on Higher Education, 3 Burlington Woods Drive, Ste 100, Burlington, MA 01803-4514, at (781) 425-7785 or email: info@neche.org
The Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis is accredited by the New England Commission on Higher Education.
Direct inquiries may be made regarding the accreditation status by NECHE to the administrative staff of the institution. Individuals may also contact: New England Commission on Higher Education, 3 Burlington Woods Drive, Ste 100, Burlington, MA 01803-4514, at (781) 425-7785 or email: info@neche.org
