DYNASTY.
Fanfani \fan-'fa-ne\, Amintore (b. Feb. 6, 1908, Pieve Santo Stefano, Italy—d. Nov. 20, 1999, Rome) Italian premier who formed and led the centre-left coalition that dominated Italian politics in the late 1950s and ’60s. Elected to Italy’s constituent assembly (1946), he became secretary- general of the Christian Democratic Party (1954) after serving briefly as premier. With his party’s victory in 1958, he became premier (1958-59) and stressed social reforms. Buoyed by widespread public reaction against rising neofascist activity, he was returned to the premiership (1960-63) and again promoted a reformist program. He gained Italy’s election to the UN Security Council (1958) and served as president of the UN General Assembly in 1965. He again served as premier in 1982-83 and in 1987.
Fang \'faq\ Bantu-speaking peoples of southern Cameroon, mainland Equatorial Guinea, and northern Gabon. The Fang number about 3.6 mil¬ lion. Under colonial rule they engaged in ivory trading and after World War I in cacao farming. By 1939 much of the population was Christian, but since 1945 syncretistic sects have grown rapidly. The Fang are politi¬ cally influential, especially in Gabon.
Fang Lizhi \ , faq- , le-'je\ (b. Feb. 12, 1936, Beijing, China) Chinese astro¬ physicist and dissident held partially responsible for the 1989 student rebellion in Tiananmen Square. In 1957 he was expelled from the Chinese Communist Party for a paper decrying the Marxist position on physics. He later taught at Beijing’s University of Science and Technology (Keda); in
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1966 he was sent to a communal farm to be reeducated. After the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, Fang’s party membership was restored. Appointed a vice president of one branch of Keda in 1985, he began work on restructuring it and reforming educational policy. During the demon¬ strations in Tiananmen Square he took refuge in the U.S. embassy, and in 1990 he and his wife were allowed to leave China. He subsequently conducted research in Britain and the U.S.
Fanon \fa-'no n \, Frantz (Omar) (b. 1925, Martinique—d. Dec. 6, 1961, Washington, D.C., U.S.) West Indian psychoanalyst and social phi¬ losopher. He served in the French army in World War II, earned a medi¬ cal degree, and became head of the psychiatric department of an Algerian hospital, where he edited the newspaper of the National Liberation Front (from 1956). In 1960 he was appointed ambassador to Ghana by the rebel provisional government. His widely read book The Wretched of the Earth (1961) urged colonized peoples to purge themselves of their degradation in a “collective catharsis” to be achieved through violence against Euro¬ pean oppressors. He died of leukemia at age 36.
fantasia \fan-'ta-zh9, .fan-to-'ze-oX Musical composition free in form and inspiration, often for an instrumental soloist. Most fantasias try to convey the impression of improvisation. The first were Italian works for lute (c. 1530). Keyboard fantasias became common in the late 16th cen¬ tury; both organ and harpsichord fantasias flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries in Britain, Germany, and France. Fugal, imitative texture, some¬ times highly learned in character, was common from the beginning, often alternating with running passagework and highly chromatic chordal pas¬ sages in free rhythms. Ensemble fantasias were widely composed as well.
fantasy Mental images or imaginary narratives that distort or entirely depart from reality. Primary fantasies arise spontaneously from the uncon¬ scious, while secondary fantasies are consciously summoned and pursued. Sigmund Freud saw fantasy as a vehicle for the expression of repressed desires (see repression). Fantasy is important in the lives of children and is a vital element in play. In adult life it is crucial to creative thinking and the making of art. Fantasy can become destructive if it serves as a con¬ stant refuge from the world of reality and a source of delusions.
Fa rite or Fanti \'fan-te\ Second largest segment of the Akan peoples of the southern coast of Ghana. The Fante speak a language of the Kwa group of Niger-Congo languages. As intermediaries in colonial-era trade between the Asante to the north and the Europeans to the south, the Fante established several independent kingdoms that formed a confederacy in the late 17th century. The confederacy aided the British in wars against the Asante in the 19th century but was disbanded in 1873 under British pressure. The Akan peoples all together make up about half of the popu¬ lation of Ghana. An important Fante organization called the asafo began as a military group, but in contemporary society it serves mostly politi¬ cal, social, and religious functions.
Fante \fan-'te\, John (b. April 8, 1909, Denver, Colo., U.S. —d. May 8, 1983, Woodland Hills, Calif.) U.S. writer. Born to Italian immigrant parents, Fante moved to Los Angeles in the early 1930s. His first novel. Wait Until Spring, Bandini (1938), was followed by his best-known book, Ask the Dust (1939), the first of his novels set in Depression-era Califor¬ nia. Other books included the story collection Dago Red (1940) and the novels Full of Life (1952) and Brotherhood of the Grape (1977). He also wrote numerous screenplays, including Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Full of Life (1956), and A Walk on the Wild Side (1962). Long eclipsed, he began to be rediscovered in the 1990s.
Fantin-Latour \fa n -ta n -la-'tur\,
(Ignace-) Henri (-Jean- Theodore) (b. Jan. 14, 1836,
Grenoble, Fr.—d. Aug. 25, 1904,
Bure) French painter and printmaker.
He was trained by his father, a por¬ trait painter, and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Though he associated with progressive artists (Gustave Courbet, Eugene Delacroix, Edouard Manet), he was a traditionalist best known for his portraits and still lifes with flowers. His portrait groups, reminiscent of 17th-century Dutch guild portraits, depict literary and
artistic persons of the time; his flower paintings were especially popular in England, thanks to James McNeill Whistler and John Everett Millais, who found patrons to support him. His later years were devoted to lithography.
Farabi \fa-'ra-be\, al- in full Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Tarkhan ibn Uzalagh al-Farabl Latin Alpharabius or Aven- nasar (b. c. 878, Turkistan—d. c. 950, Damascus?) A logician and one of the great philosophers of medieval Islam. He was probably the son of one of the caliph’s Turkish bodyguards, and he grew up in Baghdad. From 942 he resided at the court of Prince Sayf al-Dawlah. Greatly influenced by Baghdad’s Greek heritage in philosophy, especially the writings of Aris¬ totle, he was known as the Second Teacher or the Second Aristotle. He used Artistotle’s ideas in his proof of the existence of God and was influenced also by Neoplatonic ideas and Sufi mysticism. Like Plato, he believed it was the philosopher’s task to provide guidance to the state. He wrote more than 100 works, notably The Ideas of the Citizens of the Virtuous City.
Faraday, Michael (b. Sept. 22, 1791, Newington, Surrey, Eng.—d. Aug. 25, 1867, Hampton Court) English physicist and chemist. Son of a blacksmith, he received only a basic education in a church Sunday school, but he went to work as an assistant to Humphry Davy, from whom he learned chemistry. He discovered a number of new organic compounds, including benzene, and was the first to liquefy a “permanent” gas. His major contributions were in the fields of electricity and magnetism. He was the first to report induction of an electric current from a magnetic field. He invented the first electric motor and dynamo, demonstrated the relation between electricity and chemical bonding, discovered the effect of magnetism on light, and discovered and named diamagnetism. He also provided the experimental, and much of the theoretical, foundation on which James Clerk Maxwell built his electromagnetic field theory. In 1833 he was appointed professor at the Royal Institution. After 1855 he retired to a house provided by Queen Victoria, but he declined a knighthood.