Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
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Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (born February 24, 1942) is a literary critic and theorist. She is best-known for the article "Can the Subaltern Speak?", which is considered a founding text of postcolonialism, and also for her translation of Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology. Spivak teaches at Columbia University, where she was promoted to University Professor -- Columbia's highest rank -- in March 2007. A prolific scholar, she travels widely and gives lectures around the world. She is also a visiting faculty at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta.
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[edit] Work
Spivak was born Gayatri Chakravorty, in Calcutta, India, 24 February 1942, to a middle class family. She received an undergraduate degree in English at the University of Calcutta (1959), graduating with first class honours. After this, she completed her Master's in English from Cornell University, and then pursued her Ph.D. while teaching at University of Iowa. Her dissertation was on W.B. Yeats, directed by Paul de Man, titled Myself Must I Remake: The Life and Poetry of W.B. Yeats. At Cornell, she was the second woman elected to membership in the Telluride Association. She was briefly married to Talbot Spivak in the 1960s.
It was her subsequent translation of Derrida's Of Grammatology that brought her to prominence, after which she carried out a series of historical studies (as a member of the "Subaltern Studies Collective") and literary critiques of imperialism and international feminism. She has often referred to herself as a "Practical Marxist-feminist-deconstructionist," seeing each of these fields as necessary but insufficient by themselves, yet productive together. Her overriding ethico-political concern has been the tendency of institutional and cultural discourses/practices to exclude and marginalize the subaltern, especially subaltern women.
Her recent work, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason, published in 1999, explores how major works of European metaphysics (e.g., Kant, Hegel) not only tend to exclude the subaltern from their discussions, but actively prevent non-Europeans from occupying positions as fully human subjects.
Spivak coined the term "strategic essentialism," which refers to a sort of temporary solidarity for the purpose of social action. For example, the attitude that women's groups have many different agendas makes it difficult for feminists to work for common causes. "Strategic essentialism" is about the need to accept temporarily an "essentialist" position in order to be able to act.
On March 9, 2007, President Lee Bollinger appointed Spivak University Professor, the institution's highest faculty rank. In a letter to the faculty, he wrote,
| “ | Not only does her world-renowned scholarship--grounded in deconstructivist literary theory--range widely from critiques of post-colonial discourse to feminism, Marxism, and globalization; her lifelong search for fresh insights and understanding has transcended the traditional boundaries of discipline while retaining the fire for new knowledge that is the hallmark of a great intellect. | ” |
[edit] Comments on Suicide bombing
on June 2002, speaking at Leeds University, Spivak observed,
| “ | Suicide bombing - and the planes of 9/11 were living bombs - is a purposive self-annihilation, a confrontation between oneself and oneself, the extreme end of autoeroticism, killing oneself as other, in the process killing others....Suicidal resistance is a message inscribed on the body when no other means will get through. It is both execution and mourning...you die with me for the same cause, no matter which side you are on. Because no matter who you are, there are no designated killees [sic] in suicide bombing....It is a response...to the state terrorism practiced outside of its own ambit by the United States, and in the Palestinian case additionally to an absolute failure of [Israeli] hospitality. | ” |
This quotation is from Edward Alexander of the University of Washington, writing in the Jerusalem Post on Jan. 9, 2003, "Evil educators defend the indefensible." However, it may be argued that the quote merely relativizes, and does not openly defend, the use of suicide bombing. Spivak's comment may be interpreted to be descriptive rather than defensive or prescriptive.
[edit] Books
[edit] Academic
- Myself, I Must Remake: The Life and Poetry of W.B. Yeats (1974).
- Of Grammatology (translation, with critical introduction, of Derrida's text) (1976)
- In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics (1987).
- Selected Subaltern Studies (edited with Ranajit Guha) (1988)
- The Post-Colonial Critic (1990)
- Outside in the Teaching Machine (1993).
- The Spivak Reader (1995).
- A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Towards a History of the Vanishing Present (1999).
- Death of a Discipline (2005).
- Other Asias (2007).
[edit] Literary
- Imaginary Maps (translation with critical introduction of three stories by Mahasweta Devi) (1994)
- Breast Stories (translation with critical introduction of three stories by Mahasweta Devi) (1997)
- Old Women (translation with critical introduction of two stories by Mahasweta Devi) (1999)
- Song for Kali: A Cycle (translation with introduction of story by Ramproshad Sen) (2000)
- Chotti Munda and His Arrow (translation with critical introduction of the novel by Mahasweta Devi) (2002)
- Red Thread (forthcoming)
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- "In the Gaudy Supermarket" - A critical review of A Critique of Post-Colonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present by Terry Eagleton in the London Review of Books, May 1999
- "Exacting Solidarities" - Letters responding to Eagleton's review of Spivak by Judith Butler and others
- Glossary of Key Terms in the Work of Spivak
- Indian-American philosopher gets top faculty rank at Columbia University
