The Unsettler
by Grant Farred, with Alexander van Biema, Sophia Jahadhmy, and Oliver Layman
ISBN 978-1-962365-17-8
Forthcoming.
​
The unsettler is presented here as a political actor organized around the principle of the making-dead of the indigenous. In a 2008 essay, "The Unsettler," Grant Farred first develops this concept, both as a figure sui generis but also in contradistinction to that of the settler colonial. At once conceptually specific and allusive, The Unsettler is a deliberate study of that figure in history who is governed by the logic of the thanatopolitical. Drawing on a range of thinkers, from Jacques Derrida to Ghassan Kanafani and V.Y. Mudimbe, surveying a wide range of issues, from biopolitics to the sterilization of the indigenous, from the politics of the “blue grab” to organ transplants, The Unsettler adds its name to that lexicon of struggle against colonialism, neo-colonialism and, most importantly, the practice of unsettling the indigenous.​
​
​​​
Grant Farred is the author of Ethical Solidarity, published by np:
​
Alex van Biema is a PhD candidate in Africana Studies at Cornell University. Alex’s research focuses on 20th century Dutch Caribbean literature.
​
Sophia Jahadhmy is a PhD candidate at Cornell University studying race-making, enslavement, and communal violence on the Swahili Coast.
​
Oliver Layman is a PhD student at Cornell University studying the theory and praxis of subversive movements and their intellectuals.