Fanon’s Police Inspector: Graphic Narrative, History, and the Neuroethics of Trauma

Frantz Fanon practiced psychiatry in a colonized Algeria during its struggle for independence, where he treated both Algerian nationalists and French colonists. This lecture will explore one of Fanon’s cases as an ethical inquiry into the neuroscience of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A French police inspector, who is employed in torture, visits Fanon with symptoms of PTSD after escalating domestic violence. The patient asks Fanon “to help him torture … with a total peace of mind.” Is it possible for Fanon to treat the inspector in a meaningful way? More broadly, how might researchers and clinicians balance collective responsibilities to individual symptoms and social conditions? Using the medium of comics permits a visual exploration of different framings of trauma, historical context, and questions of individual and social responsibility, as well as the moral obligations raised by these theoretical framings. The lecture will conclude with a reflection on graphic narrative as a tool for reckoning with the complex history and ethics of biomedical science.

 

Ann Fink is a neuroscientist, feminist scholar, artist, and Professor of Practice in the Department of Biological Sciences at Lehigh University. Her research explores how social identity is linked to health through the neurobiology of memory; she also investigates the ethics and history of neuroscience in relation to identity, mental health, and social justice.