Critical Times 4:2

Vol. 4, No. 2 (2021)

“Crystallization” in Frantz Fanon’s political philosophy, the body’s surface in Hannah Arendt’s oeuvre, the “life strike” of migrants in Europe, and “abolition pedagogy” in South Africa are offered by contributors to this issue as critical sites and practices for confronting the violences of colonial history, biotechnological surveillance, and institutionalized higher education. The issue also features a roundtable on Tendayi Sithole’s 2020 book The Black Register, poetry by Zakaria Mohammed, and stills from a video installation by artist Yi Xin Tong.

Scholarly Essays

On Crystallization

DAVID MARRIOTT

The Life Strike: Disobeying Borders in the Era of Surveillance Biotechnologies

HOURYA BENTOUHAMI

The Value of the Surface: Reappreciating Embodiment, Labor, and Necessity in Arendt’s Political Thought

ARI-ELMERI HYVÖNEN

Abolition Pedagogy: Force Fields of Critique

KELLY GILLESPIE and LEIGH-ANN NAIDOO

Special Section

REQUIEM: ROUNDTABLE ON TENDAYI SITHOLE’S THE BLACK REGISTER

Requiem: Roundtable on Tendayi Sithole’s The Black Register: An Introduction

Victoria J. Collis-Buthelezi

The Intricacies of Sovereignty

THABANG MONOA

The Black Manifesto of Our Time

TSHEPO MASANGO CHÉRY

Artistic Interventions

Poems from The Dutchman’s Pipe

ZAKARIA MOHAMMED
Translated by Sinan Antoon

On the Mountain of the Hermits: “The Becoming of Feathered Beings”

YI XIN TONG
Curatorial Statement by Winnie Wong

Yi Xin Tong, still from Flaunting Peacock, 2:17. Poems in the Mount Lu Zoo (2015–20). Ten-channel HD video and sculptural installation with sound.