A Fanomenal Padkos Event (final serving)

After a long build up, and lots of pretty heavy readings, the Fanomenal Event is here! Everyone who wants to come should please RSVP by contacting Cindy at CLP. Email her at: cindy@churchland.co.za or call the office at 033 2644 380, if you haven’t already done so.

Here’s how CLP’s “Fanomenal Event”, jointly hosted with the Paulo Freire Institute (PFI) of the Centre for Adult Education, will unfold on Monday, 30th May, on the Pietermaritzburg campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

The morning session happens in Room 67 in the Education Building of the Golf Road campus.

Make sure you arrive by 8:45am because WE WILL START AT 9am!

Between 9am and 12:30am, David Ntseng will facilitate inputs from our outstanding speakers and discussion and debate between them and all the Padkos comrades and delegates. You’ve read their papers via the Padkos mail-list, now get to meet and hear S’bu Zikode, Mabogo More, Michael Neocosmos, Itumeleng Mosala, and Richard Pithouse. Between 12:30 and 1pm, Bishop Rubin will pull the threads together for us.

We’ll have a lunch together at the nearby University Club from 1pm until a little after 2pm.

In the afternoon, at 2:30pm, Nigel Gibson himself presents a seminar in the Ronald McMillan Lecture Hall back in the Education Building. The seminar, hosted with the PFI, is open to everyone, and the broader University community have also been invited. After time for questions and discussion, it will finish by about 4:15 pm.

After the seminar, everyone’s invited to join us for snacks, drinks, and conversation back at the University Club between 4:30 and 5:30pm.

Copies of Nigel’s new book will be available for purchase from UKZN Press at the seminar and also at the University Club later.

The final Padkos reading in this series (see attached) is the Preface from Nigel Gibson’s new book, Fanonian Practices in South Africa: From Steve Biko to Abahlali baseMjondolo. Recognising that Fanon is a contested figure, Gibson states that his intention is not to “recuperate the historical Fanon but to recreate Fanon’s philosophy of liberation in a new situation”. The new situation he helps us to live inside is our current South Africa, presenting the thinking that has emerged from “the spaces of struggle against daily living death” – drawing links for us from Biko in the 1970’s to Abahlali in the 2000’s. Gibson states that he finds in Fanon “not only a valuable critique of post-apartheid South Africa, but also a critique of, and a practical guide to, engaging the new movements that are emerging from below.” This article is perhaps a good ‘preface’ for our discussions on Monday.

Also attached are:
* Directions to the venue for the morning session.
* A brief bio of Nigel Gibson.

Read the attachments – Bio of Nigel Gibson