The Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) Human Sciences Seminar Series for 2026, Philosophies of Resistance, will explore the philosophical thought that has resisted colonial, racial and carceral oppression.
The 2026 series aims is to question the role that philosophical ideas have played – and continue to play – in collective struggles for social justice, and human emancipation more broadly.
The three seminars in this series are:
Frantz Fanon & Stand Up to Racism, Wed 25 March 2026
Philosophy in Prisons, Sat 25 April 2026
Human Rights & Resistance, Wed 27 May 2026
Each seminar includes an academic talk followed by an ‘in-conversation’ discussion between the speaker(s) and a local political activist, and questions from the audience.
A 15-minute refreshment break is included.
The MMU Human Sciences Seminar Series is an invited speaker and research seminar organised by the Philosophy section of MMU’s Department of History, Politics and Philosophy.
The series, which has run for over forty years, was founded by Philosopher David Melling and Professor Wolfe Mays in 1979. It was created out of a desire to explore the various human sciences in a systematic way from the standpoint of critical philosophy.
Frantz Omar Fanon (1925-1961) is one of the most important anti-colonial thinkers of the twentieth century. Fanon says colonialism is not simply a physical system of inequality and oppression, it also involves a framework for categorising people, and relating them to each other in social space. He argues that under colonialism the central system for categorising people is race.
In this seminar, philosopher Komarine Romdenh-Romluc will speak about the life and work of Fanon. This will be followed by an in-conversation discussion between Romdenh-Romluc and Stand up to Racism activist Nahella Ashraf, exploring the significance of Fanon’s ideas in contemporary anti-racist struggles.
Contributor biogs
Dr Komarine Romdenh-Romluc is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. Her fundamental interest is in who we are. She works within the phenomenological tradition in philosophy, and uses its resources to understand our bodily existence, and the ways we are shaped by the surrounding world. She is particularly interested in questions of diaspora identity and what it is to belong.
Nahella Ashraf is an anti-racism activist affiliated to Stand Up To Racism, where she is engaged in grassroots organising and public education aimed at challenging structural and institutional forms of racism. Her activism focuses on opposing Islamophobia, racial discrimination, and the normalisation of far right and exclusionary ideologies within public discourse and policy.
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