Zinedine Zidane and and the event of the secret
Grant Farred produces a Derridean reading of Zidane’s world-stopping head butt. When speaking of a voyou, one is calling to order; one has begun to denounce a suspect, to announce an interpellation, indeed an arrest, a convocation, a summons, a bringing in for questioning: the voyou must appear before the law.” – Jacques Derrida, […]
To Defend and to Question
Zinedine Zidane has described him as “the greatest footballer of all” and he holds the record as the most capped player in the history of the France national team with 142 appearances between 1994 and 2008… But Lilian Thuram is also an outspoken political commentator, an activist and an intellectual. Achille Mbembe spoke to him in […]
Zidane, a 21st century portrait
Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parenno’s ambitious 2006 cinematic collaboration, Zidane, a 21st century portrait, follows the French soccer star Zinédine Zidane in real time over the course of a single match, which took place in 2005. Assembled from footage shot by seventeen synchronized cameras placed around the stadium, the film captures Zidane from multiple angles, […]
A master of bling with feline style
Writing just after the 2011 Africa Cup of Nations, Achille Mbembe* looks at what makes Samuel Eto’o so lethal He is not yet 25 years old, but he is already one of the finest attackers in the world. His football culture is a mix of raw, unfettered talent (the kind that comes along once every […]
SOMEWHERE NEAR THE BEGINNING OF THE MATCH
By Abdourahman A. Waberi* (translated by Carolyn Shread). A small coastal town on the southern shore of the Red Sea, one market evening. There’s a crowd in the main square, deep in darkness, in this market town that lives by the rhythm of night tides and moonlight. The monsoon is at the city gates, herding its […]