Frank B. Wilderson III
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Frank B. Wilderson III (born April 11, 1956) is an American writer, dramatist, filmmaker and critic. He is a full professor of drama and African American studies at the
University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...
. He received his BA in government and philosophy from
Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...
, his Master of Fine Arts from
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
and his PhD in rhetoric and film studies from the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
.


Life

Wilderson was born in
New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
, and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Minneapolis, Minnesota during the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s. In his youth, Wilderson lived around or near colleges or universities as his father was a university professor. He began engaging in activism at a young age. In middle school in Chicago, where his family lived when his father was on sabbatical, he organized a civil disobedience campaign to make the
Pledge of Allegiance The Pledge of Allegiance of the United States is a patriotic recited verse that promises allegiance to the flag of the United States and the republic of the United States of America. The first version, with a text different from the one used ...
non-mandatory at his school. When Wilderson's family moved to
Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...
he joined the civil rights riots there. Student activists and intellectuals were regulars in his parents' home throughout his early life, and his family was supportive of the Black Panthers. In a Fall 2020 Dartmouth Alumni Magazine interview, Wilderson states “I came from a Minneapolis high school that was dedicated to revolution while most of the people at Dartmouth were dedicated to the upper classes in some way.” Wilderson moved across the country to study European Philosophy and Comparative Government at
Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...
in September 1974 to begin his undergraduate education. Wilderson's sister Fawn Wilderson-Legos also attended the school. He continued to organize protests and engage in civil disobedience while in university and was suspended for two years after being arrested in relation to a protest against the poor conditions of immigrant construction workers there. While suspended, Wilderson worked as a labourer, freelance writer, and garbage man, hitchhiking around the U.S. Back at Dartmouth, he participated in work at the Afro-American Society house there, was president of the Black Student Union, and a member of the historically black fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha. At Dartmouth, Wilderson also played football for the first two seasons he was there, in the position of outside linebacker. After graduating, he worked for several years as a stockbroker in
Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
until returning to school to get an MFA in creative writing at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
. In the 1990s, he lived in Johannesburg,
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
, for five years, teaching at
University of Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( or ). The university ...
, Vista University, and Khanya College. There, he was one of two Americans elected to the
African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election install ...
in 1992 led by Nelson Mandela, and was a member of the paramilitary guerrilla group Umkhonto We Sizwe. During his time in South Africa he taught regularly at universities and helped the ANC to develop anti-apartheid propaganda. Wilderson received an MA, and then Ph.D. in the Rhetoric Department, Film Studies Program at
UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...
. In Berkeley, he helped organized a protest against the arrest and trial members of the Third World Liberation Front. However, Wilderson was arrested and charged for felonies related to his actions in the protest.


Critical work

Wilderson has been described as one of the first writers in the tradition of
Afro-pessimism Afro-pessimism is a critical framework that describes the ongoing effects of racism, colonialism, and historical processes of enslavement in the United States, including the trans-Atlantic slave trade and their impact on structural conditions as w ...
. In "Grammar and Ghosts: The Performative Limits of African Freedom," Wilderson asserts that the emergence of the nation(ality) is the violent grammar that originates in slavery. He writes, “No other place-names depend on such violence. No other nouns owe their integrity to this semiotics of death.” This violence gives way to a mark (“let’s face it”), where to be African, to be African American, to be Caribbean, is to be “shaped and comprised by slavery.” African descended “peoples,” share a history and a violence in every gesture and thus, Wilderson's tracing of history begins with slavery and thus, the violence that configures the “African” does not only misstep in attempting to cohere around a nationality but also fails in attempting a coherence of the identity at all. Wilderson's writing has appeared in ''Social Identities; Social Justice'', ''Les Temps Modernes'', ''O Magazine'' ''Konch'', ''Callaloo'' ''Obsidian II'', and ''Paris Transcontinental.'' His political memoir ''Incognegro: a Memoir of Exile and Apartheid'' chronicles his time in Johannesburg when he participated in the
African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election install ...
and worked as a university professor there. The book ends after he returned to the US and began his graduate program at
UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...
. Wilderson describes the complex relationship he had to the US coming back. ''Incognegro'' won the 2008
American Book Award The American Book Award is an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "the ...
, and the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award for Creative Non-Fiction, among other awards.


Dramatist work

Frank B. Wilderson III worked as a
dramaturge A dramaturge or dramaturg is a literary adviser or editor in a theatre, opera, or film company who researches, selects, adapts, edits, and interprets scripts, libretti, texts, and printed programmes (or helps others with these tasks), consults auth ...
for
Lincoln Center Theater The Vivian Beaumont Theater is a Broadway theater in the Lincoln Center complex at 150 West 65th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Operated by the nonprofit Lincoln Center Theater (LCT), the Beaumont is the only Broad ...
's productions of Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes's ''Mule Bone'' and
Mbongeni Ngema Mbongeni Ngema (born 1 June 1956) is a South African writer, lyricist, composer, director, choreographer and theatre producer, born in Verulam, KwaZulu-Natal (near Durban). He started his career as a theatre backing guitarist. He wrote the mu ...
's ''Township Fever''; and for the Market Theater in Johannesburg's production of George C. Wolfe's ''The Colored Museum''. Wilderson III also directed the film ''Reparations…...Now'' (2005).


Awards

* The Eisner Prize for Creative Achievement of the Highest Order * The Judith Stronach Award for Poetry * The Crothers Short Prose Award * The Jerome Foundation Artists and Writers Award * The Loft-McKnight Award for Best Prose in the State of Minnesota * The Maya Angelou Award for Best Fiction Portraying the Black Experience in America. * 2008
American Book Award The American Book Award is an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "the ...
, for ''Incognegro''


Works


Books

* * ''Red, White & Black: Cinema and the Structure of US Antagonisms'' (Duke University Press, 2010). * ''Afropessimism'' (Liveright, 2020)


Selected articles


"Gramsci's Black Marx: Whither the Slave in Civil Society?."
''Social Identities'' 9.2 (2003): 225–240. *


Anthologies

*


References


External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilderson, Frank B. III 1956 births Living people American filmmakers 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights American male dramatists and playwrights American Book Award winners 20th-century American male writers Columbia University School of the Arts alumni Writers from Ann Arbor, Michigan