Hauntology and Fanon’s ‘zone of occult instability’
Ana Deumert will explore Derrida’s project of hauntology in conversation with Fanon’s The Damned of the Earth and his argument that the revolution will emerge from a ‘zone of occult instability.'

By bringing Derrida and Fanon in an imagined dialogue, Ana will suggest we should take seriously the call to ‘speak with ghosts’, that sensitivity to other-than-human worlds is central to the project of decolonisation, and that a ‘sociolinguistics of the spectre’ might allow one to rethink some aspects of the work that we do.
This includes paying attention to the said and the unspeakable in the context of colonial violence and oppression; the lasting and irreversible disruption of presentist temporalities and mono-temporal lives; as well as the possibility of taking seriously ancestral communications (in the everyday and in artistic performance).
This event will be particularly useful for researchers.
Related links
- Centre for Applied Linguistics Research Seminars Series
- Centre for Applied Linguistics
- Department of Culture, Communication and Media
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CICADA study.
Professor Ana Deumert
Professor of Linguistics
University of Cape Town
Her research programme is located within the broad field of sociolinguistics and has a strong transdisciplinary focus.
Her current work explores the use of language and art in global political movements as well as the contributions decolonial thought can make to sociolinguistic theory.