Postcolonial Intellectuals in Europe

Critics, Artists, Movements, and their Publics

Edited by Sandra Ponzanesi and Adriano José Habed

Diasporic, migrant, and/or non-white intellectuals have always played an important role in European societies, at least since the figure of the public intellectual emerged at the beginning of the nineteenth century; yet, they have often remained unsung.

This volume reengages with influential figures through a postcolonial lens. It does so, not only by offering portraits of ‘traditional’ intellectuals such as cultivated academics and philosophers, but also by bringing to the fore artists, writers and activists, as well as social movements and new forms of mobilization, who/that belong (and contribute) to the intellectual scene. The book, explores figures of postcolonial intellectuals in Europe and, in doing so, questions the very definition of ‘public intellectual’, on the one hand, and the meaning of such a thing as ‘Europe’, on the other.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Rowman & Littlefield International

Pages: 362 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-1-78660-412-5 • Hardback • August 2018 • $153.00 • (£119.00)

978-1-78660-413-2 • Paperback • February 2020 • $48.00 • (£37.00)

978-1-78660-414-9 • eBook • August 2018 • $45.50 • (£35.00)

Series: Frontiers of the Political: Doing International Politics

Subjects: Political Science / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism, Political Science / History & Theory, Political Science / World / European

Postcolonial Intellectuals in Europe

Critics, Artists, Movements, and their Publics

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Diasporic, migrant, and/or non-white intellectuals have always played an important role in European societies, at least since the figure of the public intellectual emerged at the beginning of the nineteenth century; yet, they have often remained unsung.

This volume reengages with influential figures through a postcolonial lens. It does so, not only by offering portraits of ‘traditional’ intellectuals such as cultivated academics and philosophers, but also by bringing to the fore artists, writers and activists, as well as social movements and new forms of mobilization, who/that belong (and contribute) to the intellectual scene. The book, explores figures of postcolonial intellectuals in Europe and, in doing so, questions the very definition of ‘public intellectual’, on the one hand, and the meaning of such a thing as ‘Europe’, on the other.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Rowman & Littlefield International

Pages: 362 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-1-78660-412-5 • Hardback • August 2018 • $153.00 • (£119.00)

978-1-78660-413-2 • Paperback • February 2020 • $48.00 • (£37.00)

978-1-78660-414-9 • eBook • August 2018 • $45.50 • (£35.00)

Series: Frontiers of the Political: Doing International Politics

Subjects: Political Science / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism, Political Science / History & Theory, Political Science / World / European

Author

Sandra Ponzanesi is Professor of Gender and Postcolonial Studies, Department of Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.

Adriano José Habed is a doctoral student in Political Philosophy and Gender Studies at the Department of Human Sciences, University of Verona, Italy, and the Department of Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.

Table of Contents

Preface: Activist Intellectuals: Postcolonial Truth-telling Subjects, Engin Isin / Introduction: Postcolonial Intellectuals, European Publics: Definitions, Figures, Questions, Adriano José Habed and Sandra Ponzanesi / Part 1: Portraits of the Postcolonial Intellectual / 1. Antonio Gramsci and Anti-colonial Internationalism, Neelam Srivastava / 2. Traveling Orientalism: a Discussion of the European Reception of Edward Said, Jamila M. H. Mascat / 3. Simone de Beauvoir, Frantz Fanon, Algeria: Violence and Revolution, Christine Quinan / 4. The Voice of Stuart Hall, the Public Intellectual, Nirmal Puwar / 5. Hannah Arendt and Postcolonial Thought, Christopher Lee / 6. Rosi Braidotti and Paul Gilroy: Questions of Temporality and Cosmopolitan Futures of Europe, Bolette Blagaard / Part II: Artists and Writers as Intellectuals / 7. Salman Rushdie: The Accidental Intellectual in the Mediascape, Ana Mendes / 8. Documentary Practice as Political Intervention: Feminist Film-makers/Artists as Intellectuals, Domitilla Olivieri / 9. ‘Not Merely in Symbol but in Reality’: Zadie Smith and the Aesthetic of the Intellectual, Jesse van Amelsvoort / 10. Workshop's Fabrik: Independent Black British Filming and the Re-Routing of Diasporic Intellectual Practices, Liliana Ellena / 11. The Curator as a Public Intellectual: Okwui Enwezor, Rosemarie Buikema / 12. Anonymous Urban Disruptions – Exploring Banksy as an Artistic Activist and Social Critic, Tindra Thor / Part III. Intellectual Movements and Networks / 13. Muslim Public Intellectuals in the First Half of the Twentieth Century: A Prelude to Postcolonial Theory, Mehdi Sajid & Umr Ryad / 14. The Indigènes de la République Party as a Collective and Organic Intellectual in France, Gianfranco Rebucini / 15. Hacking the European Refugee Crisis? Data Activism and Human Rights, Koen Leurs / 16. Queer of Colour Critique and the Making of Black Diasporic Movements in Europe, Gianmaria Colpani / 17. Anonymity, Equality and the Political Critique of Postcolonial Europ, Sudeep Dasgupta / 18. Intellectuals in Transition, Sandro Mezzadra / Afterword, Bruce Robbins

Reviews

Here postcolonial perspectives sequence into a heterogeneity of cultural and political practices that rework the archives of the West in another key, critically challenging the continuing colonial formation of thepresent.

— Iain Chambers, author of Postcolonial Interruptions, Unauthorised Modernities

Ponzanesi and Habed have given us that rare gift in trying times: a wide-ranging and broadly comparative examination of the significance of the work of postcolonial scholars and public thinkers in debates on the various problems that afflict Europe today. Providing us with signposts and fresh research agendas, Postcolonial Intellectuals in Europe will prove to be one of the most innovative volumes on the question of postcolonial scholarship in a very long time.
— Ato Quayson, Professor of English, University of Toronto

This is a fascinating and timely book. Anticolonial Lebanese princes and West Indian revolutionary black Marxists, thinkers like Arendt and Derrida and contemporary social movements, artistic activists and writers like Rushdie stage engaging and often displacing dialogues across the pages of Postcolonial Intellectuals in Europe. And the “postcolonial intellectual” becomes a prism that allows us to rethink at the same time both “Europe” and “the postcolonial.” Opening up new angles on a politics of liberation in these hard times.
— Sandro Mezzadra, Associate Professor of Political Theory, University of Bologna