meghanmoloney 's review for:

Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon

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Black Skin White Masks confused the hell out of me when I read it in second-year English lit. It was one of my first experiences with literary criticism and also with semiotics and the theories of difference and orientalism. We read it contextually along with Edward Said and Jacques Derrida. The previous semester I'd been introduced to and bewildered by Foucault, Judith Butler, and Lacan in my women's studies course, which was taught by an English professor - luckily for me, because those theorists and theories came up many times in my senior years; unluckily also, for me, since that particular professor was from New Zealand and I could barely understand her accent. To say the least, those first two years of my English literature degree opened my eyes to ideas that have since shaped my entire understanding of the world.