On December 20, 2025, Dr. Jemima Pierre (the director of the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice) delivered a keynote address at The International Conference on the Centenary of Frantz Fanon. The event took place at the Penc Gallery at Musée des Civilization Noires in Dakar, Senegal. The wider theme was “A Commemoration for Humanity” and concluded a year of activities dedicated to the legacy of one of the most influential thinkers in the anti-colonial struggle and African hope.
Dr. Pierre opened the final day of the conference with a talk titled “Concerning Violence.” The lecture revisited the extreme violence of the colonial system, from its armed and material foundations to the discursive forms through which it is named and framed.
Drawing in particular on the case of Haiti, it showed that without a rigorous diagnosis of this structural violence, Fanon’s conception of violence cannot be fully understood as a response produced by colonial domination itself.
About Frantz Fanon’s Legacy
From the conference materials: “Fanon profoundly marked his era through an uncompromising critique of colonialism and its destructive effects on bodies, minds, and societies. His fight did not stop at denunciation: he carried a vision — that of humanity’s healing through the initiative of the colonized and the invention of new trajectories.
At a time when African youth express a strong desire to break with colonial and neo-colonial legacies, his message resonates with striking relevance.”
For media inquiries about this topic, please contact Dr. Pierre at jpierr02@mail.ubc.ca
