“Decolonization, which sets out to change the order of the world, is, obviously, a programmeof complete disorder” (27) 
 
—Frantz Fanon, The Wretched OfThe Earth 

In his searing manifesto for decolonial revolution, The Wretched OfThe Earth, Martinican political theorist and psychoanalystFrantz Fanon mounts a political claim that is disconcertingly tinged with a certain skepticism. Even as he issues a powerful call for political change, declaring that “the European game has finally ended; we must find something different,” he admits that the national consciousness for which decolonization paves the way “will be in any case only an empty shell, a crude and fragile travesty of what it might have been” (251, 119).If revolutionresults in a travesty, the path from struggle to freedom is not as secure as we might hope.Not only does pessimism predicate a revolutionary sensibility for Fanon, but our faculties of suspicion continue to persist after (federal) decolonization. As such, Fanon allows us to notice how, far from dulling down politicalfervor, pessimism is inextricably linked to political opposition.Such an insight counters commonplace understandings of the affects of revolution, opposition, and struggle.Much too often pessimism is seen as antagonistic to political passions: while politics is seen as the realm of world-building or utopian thinking, pessimism is viewed as, an academic luxury, at best, and an apolitical defense, at worst. In contrast, Fanon asserts that the antagonism that pessimism lays bare is not subsidiary to but rather constitutiveofrevolution.  

Taking our cue from Fanon to enter a broader conversation about critical pessimism, the twelfth edition of the Tufts Graduate Humanities Conference aims to think about how pessimism and politics inform one another, insisting that criticisms of optimism might ironically offernew ways of imagining, surviving, or working through the world. Such an invitation opens room to thinkthe political anew by foregrounding the impossibility of changing the structure of the political as such. This intervention asks that webear witness to the political state of the world today, impacted, as it is, by the resurgence of global fascisms, the persistence of colonial violence, the reinforcement of anti-blackness, the attack on the humanities, and the assault on dissent globally. In reckoning with this context, we also wish to ask: How does pessimism express itself affectively, socially, culturally, theoretically, politically, and ecologically? What does it mean to oppose systems of power if we can predict the ways such structures perpetuate themselves yet again? And how does such a pessimistic spirit allow us to approach gender, sexuality, race, disability, nationalism, colonialism, or the environment differently?  

We welcome papers that investigate the titular contradiction/tension and its attendant problems and possibilities. What we see is an interdisciplinary range of inquiries, one that includes humanities, social sciences, performance arts, theatre, education among other fields. We also invite individual or collaborative projects. Papers might engage with a series of subjects, possibly conversing with: 

• Afropessimism and critical race theories 

• Queer negativity and anti-futurity 

• The death drive 

• Subalternity and the problems of representation 

• Theories on utopia/dystopia 

• Theories on failure 

• Theories on abjection 

• Modernity and anti-modernity 

• Decolonization and denationalization 

• Neocolonialism and neoliberalism 

• Disaffection, ugly feelings, not-quite hope, and other pessimistic affects 

• Catastrophe and disaster studies 

The twelfth Tufts Graduate Humanities Conference will be held in person on October 17th, 2025. at Tufts University’s Medford Campus. Please send proposals to tuftsghc@gmail.com by July 1, 2025. In your proposal, include a title, brief abstract of no more than 300 words, and a short biography including your university and department affiliation. Please reach out to us on the same email if you have any questions.