Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Encyclopedia
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (born 24 February 1942) is an India
n literary critic, theorist
and a University Professor
at Columbia University
. She is best known for the essay "Can the Subaltern Speak?", considered a founding text of postcolonialism
, and for her translation of Jacques Derrida's
Of Grammatology
. She describes herself as a "practical Marxist-feminist-deconstructionist". She is also a visiting faculty member at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences
, Calcutta. Spivak is best known for her contemporary cultural and critical theories to challenge the "legacy of colonialism" and the way readers engage with literature and culture. She often focuses on the cultural texts of those who are marginalized by dominant western culture: the new immigrant, the working class, women and other "postcolonial subjects."
, 24 February 1942. After completing her school education from the St. John's Diocesan Girls' Higher Secondary School
, she received an undergraduate degree in English at the Presidency College, Kolkata
under the University of Calcutta
(1959), graduating with first class honours and received gold medals for English and Bengali literature. After this, she completed her Master's in English from Cornell University
, and then pursued her Ph.D.
while teaching at the University of Iowa
.
Her dissertation was on W.B. Yeats
, directed by Paul de Man
at Cornell, 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. The Bride Wore the Traditional Gold by Talbot Spivak is an autobiographical novel that deals with the early years of this marriage.
In March 2007 Spivak became the University Professor
at Columbia University
, making her the only woman of colour to be bestowed the University's highest honour in its 264-year history.
. Spivak writes that in the few places where sati was practiced, such as Bengal, women had the right to inherit which means there may have been some corrupting fiscal influences involved in the performance of sati. Still, all we hear about sati are re-presentations (by British colonizers or Hindu leaders) of what sati meant to, or how it oppressed, women, but we never hear from the sati-performing brown women themselves- thus the subaltern cannot speak. Some critics, however, say that the sati-performing women cannot speak because they die in the practice of ritual suicide.
Spivak's translation of Derrida's Of Grammatology
, which included a translator's introduction that has since been described as "setting a new standard for self-reflexivity in prefaces," (Spivak Reader, p. 1) brought her to prominence. After this, 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". Her overriding ethico-political concern has been the tendency of institutional and cultural discourses/practices to exclude and marginalize the subaltern, especially subaltern women. Edward Said
wrote that "She pioneered the study in literary theory of non-Western women and produced one of the earliest and most coherent accounts of that role available to us."
In "Can the Subaltern Speak" (1988) Spivak highlights how Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault confine the decentering of subjectivity to the West, which represents the non-Western other as real and knowable.
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.
Spivak taught at several universities before arriving at Columbia in 1991. She has been a Guggenheim fellow, has received numerous academic honors including an honorary doctorate from Oberlin College
, and has been on the editorial board of academic journals such as boundary 2
. On March 9, 2007, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger
appointed Spivak University Professor, the institution's highest faculty rank. In a letter to the faculty, he wrote,
Spivak's writing has been described by some as opaque. It has also been suggested that her work puts style ahead of substance.
In her defense, it has been argued that this sort of criticism reveals an unwillingness to substantively engage with her texts. Judith Butler
has noted that Spivak's supposedly inaccessible language has, in fact, resonated with, and profoundly changed the thinking of, "tens of thousands of activists and scholars." And Marxist literary critic Terry Eagleton
, who has called her writing "inaccessible," noted nevertheless that "there can thus be few more important critics of our age than the likes of Spivak.... She has probably done more long-term political good, in pioneering feminist and post-colonial studies within global academia than almost any of her theoretical colleagues."
In speeches given and published since 2002, Spivak has addressed the issue of terrorism. Clearly stating that her intention is to bring an end to suicide bombing, she has explored and, "tried to imagine what message [such acts] might contain.". These ruminations have included descriptions such as: "suicide bombing is an act inscribed on the body when no other means will get through."
One critic has suggested that this sort of stylized language may serve to blur important moral issues relating to terrorism. However, she stated in the text of the speech that "Single coerced yet willed suicidal 'terror' is in excess of the destruction of dynastic temples and the violation of women, tenacious and powerfully residual. It has not the banality of evil. It is informed by the stupidity of belief taken to extreme."
The Project is committed to using the existing state curriculum and textbooks to train teachers, in the belief that by using these materials they can better enable their students to enter the national education system on equal terms with others. "Since India constantly brags about being the world's largest democracy, and this is a large sector of the electorate, what I'm trying to do is develop rituals of democratic habits," she said of the Project.
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n literary critic, theorist
Literary theory
Literary theory in a strict sense is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for analyzing literature. However, literary scholarship since the 19th century often includes—in addition to, or even instead of literary theory in the strict sense—considerations of...
and a University Professor
University Professor (Columbia)
University Professor is the highest academic rank at Columbia University.-University Professors:*Richard Axel, molecular biology and neuroscience*Jagdish Bhagwati, economics and law*Ronald Breslow, organic chemistry...
at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. She is best known for the essay "Can the Subaltern Speak?", considered a founding text of postcolonialism
Postcolonialism
Post-colonialism is a specifically post-modern intellectual discourse that consists of reactions to, and analysis of, the cultural legacy of colonialism...
, and for her translation of Jacques Derrida's
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
Of Grammatology
Of Grammatology
De la grammatologie is a book by French philosopher Jacques Derrida, first published in 1967 by Les Éditions de Minuit. Of Grammatology, the English translation by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, was first published in 1976 by Johns Hopkins University Press...
. She describes herself as a "practical Marxist-feminist-deconstructionist". She is also a visiting faculty member at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences
Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta
The Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta is an autonomous research centre devoted to the research and advancement of the social sciences in South Asia...
, Calcutta. Spivak is best known for her contemporary cultural and critical theories to challenge the "legacy of colonialism" and the way readers engage with literature and culture. She often focuses on the cultural texts of those who are marginalized by dominant western culture: the new immigrant, the working class, women and other "postcolonial subjects."
Life
Spivak was born Gayatri Chakravorty, in Calcutta, IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, 24 February 1942. After completing her school education from the St. John's Diocesan Girls' Higher Secondary School
St. John's Diocesan Girls' Higher Secondary School
St. John's Diocesan Girls' H S School, , is situated in the city of Kolkata in the Indian state of West Bengal. It was established in 1894. Standing on the crossing of Sarat Bose Road and Elgin Road in South Kolkata.-Overview:The school is one of the oldest girl's schools of Kolkata...
, she received an undergraduate degree in English at the Presidency College, Kolkata
Presidency College, Kolkata
Presidency University, Kolkata, formerly Hindu College and Presidency College, is a unitary, state aided university, located in Kolkata, West Bengal. and one of the premier institutes of learning of liberal arts and sciences in India. In 2002 it was ranked number one by the weekly news magazine...
under the University of Calcutta
University of Calcutta
The University of Calcutta is a public university located in the city of Kolkata , India, founded on 24 January 1857...
(1959), graduating with first class honours and received gold medals for English and Bengali literature. After this, she completed her Master's in English from Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, and then pursued her Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
while teaching at the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
.
Her dissertation was on W.B. Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...
, directed by Paul de Man
Paul de Man
Paul de Man was a Belgian-born deconstructionist literary critic and theorist.He began teaching at Bard College. Later, he completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University in the late 1950s...
at Cornell, 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
Telluride Association
The Telluride Association is a non-profit organization in the United States that provides young people with free educational programs emphasizing intellectual curiosity, democratic self-governance, and social responsibility. Students are invited to apply based on academic criteria, such as high...
. She was briefly married to Talbot Spivak in the 1960s. The Bride Wore the Traditional Gold by Talbot Spivak is an autobiographical novel that deals with the early years of this marriage.
In March 2007 Spivak became the University Professor
University Professor (Columbia)
University Professor is the highest academic rank at Columbia University.-University Professors:*Richard Axel, molecular biology and neuroscience*Jagdish Bhagwati, economics and law*Ronald Breslow, organic chemistry...
at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, making her the only woman of colour to be bestowed the University's highest honour in its 264-year history.
Works
In Can The Subaltern Speak, Spivak discusses some nuances of the race and power dynamics involved in the banning of the SatiSati (practice)
For other uses, see Sati .Satī was a religious funeral practice among some Indian communities in which a recently widowed woman either voluntarily or by use of force and coercion would have immolated herself on her husband’s funeral pyre...
. Spivak writes that in the few places where sati was practiced, such as Bengal, women had the right to inherit which means there may have been some corrupting fiscal influences involved in the performance of sati. Still, all we hear about sati are re-presentations (by British colonizers or Hindu leaders) of what sati meant to, or how it oppressed, women, but we never hear from the sati-performing brown women themselves- thus the subaltern cannot speak. Some critics, however, say that the sati-performing women cannot speak because they die in the practice of ritual suicide.
Spivak's translation of Derrida's Of Grammatology
Of Grammatology
De la grammatologie is a book by French philosopher Jacques Derrida, first published in 1967 by Les Éditions de Minuit. Of Grammatology, the English translation by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, was first published in 1976 by Johns Hopkins University Press...
, which included a translator's introduction that has since been described as "setting a new standard for self-reflexivity in prefaces," (Spivak Reader, p. 1) brought her to prominence. After this, 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". Her overriding ethico-political concern has been the tendency of institutional and cultural discourses/practices to exclude and marginalize the subaltern, especially subaltern women. Edward Said
Edward Said
Edward Wadie Saïd was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in postcolonialism...
wrote that "She pioneered the study in literary theory of non-Western women and produced one of the earliest and most coherent accounts of that role available to us."
In "Can the Subaltern Speak" (1988) Spivak highlights how Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault confine the decentering of subjectivity to the West, which represents the non-Western other as real and knowable.
Her recent work, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason, published in 1999
1999 in literature
The year 1999 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*June 19 - Stephen King is hit by a Dodge van while taking a walk. He spends the next three weeks hospitalized...
, explores how major works of European metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
(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
Strategic essentialism
Strategic essentialism is a major concept in postcolonial theory. The term was coined by the Indian literary critic and theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. It refers to a strategy that nationalities, ethnic groups or minority groups can use to present themselves...
," 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.
Spivak taught at several universities before arriving at Columbia in 1991. She has been a Guggenheim fellow, has received numerous academic honors including an honorary doctorate from Oberlin College
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...
, and has been on the editorial board of academic journals such as boundary 2
Boundary 2
boundary 2 is an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies, theory, libertarian politics and literary criticism. In the 1970s and 1980s it was one of the primary venues for poststructuralist literary theory in the United States. It is edited primarily at the University of Pittsburgh and...
. On March 9, 2007, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger
Lee Bollinger
Lee Carroll Bollinger is an American lawyer and educator who is currently serving as the 19th president of Columbia University. Formerly the president of the University of Michigan, he is a noted legal scholar of the First Amendment and freedom of speech...
appointed Spivak University Professor, the institution's highest faculty rank. In a letter to the faculty, he wrote,
Spivak's writing has been described by some as opaque. It has also been suggested that her work puts style ahead of substance.
In her defense, it has been argued that this sort of criticism reveals an unwillingness to substantively engage with her texts. Judith Butler
Judith Butler
Judith Butler is an American post-structuralist philosopher, who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy, and ethics. She is a professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley.Butler received her Ph.D...
has noted that Spivak's supposedly inaccessible language has, in fact, resonated with, and profoundly changed the thinking of, "tens of thousands of activists and scholars." And Marxist literary critic Terry Eagleton
Terry Eagleton
Terence Francis Eagleton FBA is a British literary theorist and critic, who is regarded as one of Britain's most influential living literary critics...
, who has called her writing "inaccessible," noted nevertheless that "there can thus be few more important critics of our age than the likes of Spivak.... She has probably done more long-term political good, in pioneering feminist and post-colonial studies within global academia than almost any of her theoretical colleagues."
In speeches given and published since 2002, Spivak has addressed the issue of terrorism. Clearly stating that her intention is to bring an end to suicide bombing, she has explored and, "tried to imagine what message [such acts] might contain.". These ruminations have included descriptions such as: "suicide bombing is an act inscribed on the body when no other means will get through."
One critic has suggested that this sort of stylized language may serve to blur important moral issues relating to terrorism. However, she stated in the text of the speech that "Single coerced yet willed suicidal 'terror' is in excess of the destruction of dynastic temples and the violation of women, tenacious and powerfully residual. It has not the banality of evil. It is informed by the stupidity of belief taken to extreme."
Philanthropy
Spivak founded The Pares Chandra and Sivani Chakravorty Memorial Education Project, a not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization, in 1997, to provide a primary education of quality for children in some of the poorest regions of the globe, continuing work that Spivak had started doing in 1986. The Project currently operates schools in rural areas of West Bengal, India. By setting up schools and giving sustained training to local teachers who operate them with the help of local supervisors, the Project seeks to offer children in these areas the resources to enter the mainstream education system for high school and beyond.The Project is committed to using the existing state curriculum and textbooks to train teachers, in the belief that by using these materials they can better enable their students to enter the national education system on equal terms with others. "Since India constantly brags about being the world's largest democracy, and this is a large sector of the electorate, what I'm trying to do is develop rituals of democratic habits," she said of the Project.
Academic
- Myself, I Must Remake: The Life and Poetry of W.B. Yeats (1974).
- Of Grammatology (translation, with a 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 (2003).
- Other Asias (2005).
Literary
- Imaginary Maps (translation with critical introduction of three stories by Mahasweta DeviMahasweta DeviMahasweta Devi is an Indian social activist and writer.- Biography :Mahasweta Devi was born in 1926 in Dhaka, to literary parents in a Hindu Brahmin family. Her father Manish Ghatak was a well known poet and novelist of the Kallol era, who used the pseudonym Jubanashwa...
) (1994) - Breast Stories (translation with critical introduction of three stories by Mahasweta DeviMahasweta DeviMahasweta Devi is an Indian social activist and writer.- Biography :Mahasweta Devi was born in 1926 in Dhaka, to literary parents in a Hindu Brahmin family. Her father Manish Ghatak was a well known poet and novelist of the Kallol era, who used the pseudonym Jubanashwa...
) (1997) - Old Women (translation with critical introduction of two stories by Mahasweta DeviMahasweta DeviMahasweta Devi is an Indian social activist and writer.- Biography :Mahasweta Devi was born in 1926 in Dhaka, to literary parents in a Hindu Brahmin family. Her father Manish Ghatak was a well known poet and novelist of the Kallol era, who used the pseudonym Jubanashwa...
) (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 DeviMahasweta DeviMahasweta Devi is an Indian social activist and writer.- Biography :Mahasweta Devi was born in 1926 in Dhaka, to literary parents in a Hindu Brahmin family. Her father Manish Ghatak was a well known poet and novelist of the Kallol era, who used the pseudonym Jubanashwa...
) (2002) - Red Thread (forthcoming)
See also
- List of deconstructionists
- PostcolonialismPostcolonialismPost-colonialism is a specifically post-modern intellectual discourse that consists of reactions to, and analysis of, the cultural legacy of colonialism...
- Postcolonial feminismPostcolonial feminismPostcolonial feminism, often referred to as Third World feminism, is a form of feminist philosophy which centers around the idea that racism, colonialism, and the long lasting effects of colonialism in the postcolonial setting, are inextricably bound up with the unique gendered realities of...
- Subaltern StudiesSubaltern StudiesThe Subaltern Studies Group or Subaltern Studies Collective are a group of South Asian scholars interested in the postcolonial and post-imperial societies of South Asia in particular and the developing world in general. The term Subaltern Studies is sometimes also applied more broadly to others...
External links
- 'Righting Wrongs' (Read full article)
- 'Woman' as Theatre in Radical PhilosophyRadical PhilosophyRadical Philosophy is a British academic journal of critical theory and continental philosophy, appearing six times a year. It was established in 1972 with the purpose of providing a forum for the theoretical work which was emerging in the wake of the radical movements of the 1960s, in philosophy...
- Full article "Can the Subaltern Speak?"
- "In the Gaudy Supermarket" – A critical review of A Critique of Post-Colonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present by Terry EagletonTerry EagletonTerence Francis Eagleton FBA is a British literary theorist and critic, who is regarded as one of Britain's most influential living literary critics...
in the London Review of BooksLondon Review of BooksThe London Review of Books is a fortnightly British magazine of literary and intellectual essays.-History:The LRB was founded in 1979, during the year-long lock-out at The Times, by publisher A...
, May 1999 - "Exacting Solidarities" – Letters responding to Eagleton's review of Spivak by Judith ButlerJudith ButlerJudith Butler is an American post-structuralist philosopher, who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy, and ethics. She is a professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley.Butler received her Ph.D...
and others - Glossary of Key Terms in the Work of Spivak