CALL FOR PAPER 2013

[...] a instauração do processo de desenvolvimento nacional está intimamente ligada à possibilidade de enveredar o país pelo rumo da revolução tecnológica. [...] É preciso que se esforcem por apoderar-se o mais depressa possível das técnicas fecundas, tendo a consciência de que assim deverão proceder porque a aquisição desse saber é o instrumento mais eficaz do seu desenvolvimento. Tais países não poderão vencer o atraso econômico senão pela ação política lúcida e decidida, que determine a comunidade a realizar enorme esforço de acumulação de capital para financiar o progresso técnico. (Álvaro Vieira Pinto, Consciência e Realidade Nacional I, pp. 84-85

Oxford Handbook of Modern French Philosophy, edited by Mark Sinclair and Daniel Whistler, OUP, pp. 237–254, 2024

This articles focuses on the concept of “situation” in Fanon’s philosophy, a notion that has seldom been analysed as pivotal in his thought. By functioning as an interface between the descriptive and the praxical, this concept played a transdisciplinary function in Fanon’s philosophy, operating as a “silent mediation” between psychiatry, philosophy and politics. My argument follows the circulations of the concept of “situation” in postwar psychiatry as well as in the philosophies of “existence” of Karl Jaspers, Günther Anders, and Jean-Paul Sartre. The first two sections address Fanon’s discussion of “situational diagnoses” in Fanon’s earliest writings and as a general methodological framework for Black Skin White Masks (1952). It is on the basis of a condensed philosophical genealogy of the concept of “situation” presented in the third section, that the fourth section reexamines the role of meaning in racial identification in “The Lived Experience of the Black”. The final section argues that Fanon’s intervention in postwar philosophy cannot be grasped without understanding the theoretical displacements it effectuated: by situating critique Fanon paradoxically expanded the scope of philosophy.

‘The Depiction of Warfare in Philip de Novare’s Account of the War Between the Emperor Frederick II and the Ibelins in Syria and Cyprus.’, 2013

Philip’s History also contributes to current debate amongst historians and particularly the investigations into military conduct during the crusading period. For example one of the current movements in historical consensus at present is the notion that the Crusader States were not as diminished and vulnerable in the thirteenth century as has previously been thought. Some locations such as Antioch and John d’Ibelins’ Beirut seem to have been more prosperous than in the previous century. Philip’s text depicts a large scale civil war in which the positions of three powerful monarchs are involved (King of Jerusalem, King of Cyprus, and the Holy Roman Emperor). Military forces are not only gathered from Germany, Italy, Cyprus and Syria but the conflict itself lasts for fourteen years. An all but collapsed state could not support such an effort and the fact that wealthy barons such as John d’Ibelin could maintain a military force themselves suggests a great income from trade in the Levant. Authors on the military affairs of this period such as Housley and France have made little use of Philip’s History. Marshall and Edbury are the only historians to have utilised Philip’s text and even take an interest in the military events of the early thirteenth century. Many feel his inherent bias undermines the value of his account but Philip’s observations on military affairs are detached from the bias nature of the narrative. The position of the History as a contribution to thirteenth century literature is however undisputed.