User talk:Jordan.d.o/sandbox

Hello Jordan,

I have since had a chance to review what you propose to add to the Wikipedia article The Wretched of the Earth. I’d like to preface my critique my stating that it is because the “Summary” section for your selected Wikipedia article is rather short that I believe that you have selected an excellent article to add to. Furthermore, we have covered Fanon in our ANTH 4730 seminar, so I deem the subject matter in which you cover to be especially relevant to the class. I would also like to add that the Wikipedia article that you have selected has little citations—do you plan on adding citations so that the article is more reliable? Along with the additions that you plan on contributing to the Wikipedia article, I imagine that adding citations where you can in this article can render this Wikipedia article credible. That being said, I am not sure that citing previously published material by other authors of this article is our responsibility—thus, I would advise you to not feel immense pressure to take this piece of advice. While there are obvious issues with the published material in the Wikipedia article, your summary and proposed additions are commendable.

One of the aspects I enjoy most about your summary of The Wretched of the Earth is that you utilize quotes when using terms such as “barbaric.” The quotes around words like barbaric convey to me that you do not believe that the so-called colonized people are primitive, rather—that this description relates to the colonizers and colonized peoples’ configuration of themselves and culture (according to Fanon). Additionally, I enjoy the fact that some of the words you utilize are links to various Wikipedia article. For example, “Decolonisation of Africa” and “Négritude” are linked to other articles. Some viewers of this Wikipedia article The Wretched of the Earth may be unfamiliar with these concepts, therefore these links are incredibly valuable. What I find to be admirable about your summary of The Wretched of the Earth is that you include page numbers to direct the Wikipedia article’s audience to the particular page numbers you are referencing. Though I am not sure that this is a common practice (and something I would bring up to the professor), I find the page numbers to be incredibly convenient. The page numbers that you include in your summary may be beneficial for a scholarly audience who wish to cover certain concepts that Fanon references in a paper or in a class discussion without having to re-read Fanon’s work. While I concur that your summary is largely comprehensible, I would suggest that cite certain sentences if you can.

For example, you write that “In the essay, "On National Culture" collected in The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon sets out to define how a national culture and identity can emerge among the formerly and, at the time of publication in 1961, still-colonized nations of Africa (Decolonisation of Africa). In particular, "On National Culture" might be understood as an account of the 'colonized intellectual', and how this intellectual struggles against colonial domination.” I suppose that you should cite these two sentences, as you are sourcing information that you found in The Wretched of the Earth. Citing these two sentences would point the Wikipedia article’s audience to the information that allowed you to formulate these two summary sentences, thus a citation would be valuable for the article’s audience. Besides this, I worry that your writing is slightly formal (I emphasize that this is not an error on your end, as university students are taught to write in a somewhat stiff manner). I would suggest that you utilize more colloquial terminology so that the everyman may be able to understand the additions to your selected Wikipedia article. However, as mentioned before—I wholly understand the additions to this draft (as I believe others will as well), so it is not detrimental if you do not change some of the terminology that you employ in your summary. My other critique of your Wikipedia article draft is that I see that you have suggested that you will cite certain sources such as "Disavowing Decolonization" by Neil Lazarus in Frantz Fanon: Critical Perspectives and A critique of revolutionary humanism: Frantz Fanon by Richard C. Onwuanibe, however you do not detail a summary of these works and what elements of these academic pieces you intend to apply in order to critique Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth. Your Wikipedia article draft has more potential to be powerful if you had included the elements of the aforementioned works that you intend to use to criticize Fanon’s work. I do not think that the summary of these works needs to be long, just detailed enough so that I/the professor has a better idea of how you will apply these works to critique The Wretched of the Earth. Lastly, I suggest that you look at Fanon’s work Black Skin, White Masks and see if there are elements of Fanon’s work that may be useful for your summary. Perhaps if you show linkages between his works, you can analyse Fanon’s ideals more adequately (or it may lead you to other scholars’ criticisms of Fanon). However, as I have repeated throughout my response to your summary of The Wretched of the Earth, this is a mere suggestion and your summary is still strong whether you choose to look at Black Skin, White Masks or not. Ultimately, your summary of The Wretched of the Earth is excellent, and I am looking forward to your final addition to the Wikipedia article.

Here is a PDF version of Black Skin, White Masks if you are interested: https://monoskop.org/images/a/a5/Fanon_Frantz_Black_Skin_White_Masks_1986.pdf

Best, Rosamond Colton