Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Full name	Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Born	1942 Calcutta, British India
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Post-colonial theory
School	Post-colonial theory Post-structuralism
Main interests	History of ideas · Literature · Deconstruction · Feminism · Marxism
Notable ideas	"subaltern", "strategic essentialism"
Influenced by Immanuel Kant, Jacques Derrida, Karl Marx, Paul de Man, Michel Foucault, Antonio Gramsci

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (born 24 February 1942) is an Indian literary critic, theorist and a University Professor at Columbia University. She is best known for the monograph "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".^[1][2] 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."

Life

Spivak was born Gayatri Chakravorty, in Calcutta, India, 24 February 1942.^[3] 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.^[3] 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.^[3]

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.^[3] 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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[2]

Works

In Can The Subaltern Speak, Spivak discusses some nuances of the race and power dynamics involved in the banning of the Sati. 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.^[4]

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^[3], 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".^[2] 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."^[5] In "Can the Subaltern Speak" (1988)^[6] 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,^[7] 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,

“

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.

”

Spivak's writing has been described by some as opaque.^[8] It has also been suggested that her work puts style ahead of substance.^[9]

In her defense, it has been argued that this sort of criticism reveals an unwillingness to substantively engage with her texts.^[10] 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." ^[11] 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."^[12]

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.".^[13] These ruminations have included descriptions such as: "suicide bombing is an act inscribed on the body when no other means will get through."^[13]

One critic has suggested that this sort of stylized language may serve to blur important moral issues relating to terrorism.^[14] 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."^[13]

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.^[15]

Books

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 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)

See also

• List of deconstructionists
• Postcolonialism
• Postcolonial feminism
• Subaltern Studies

References

1. ^ Perumalil, Augustine (2009). History of women in philosophy. Global Vision. p. 347. ISBN 9788182202740. 
2. ^ ^{a b c} LAHIRI, BULAN (2011-02-06). "Speaking to Spivak". The Hindu (Chennai, India). http://www.hindu.com/lr/2011/02/06/stories/2011020650020100.htm. Retrieved 7 February 2011. 
3. ^ ^{a b c d e} "Reading Spivak". The Spivak reader: selected works of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Routledge. 1996. pp. 1–4. http://books.google.com/books?id=gCHcsaSi-sUC&pg=PT12. 
4. ^ Spivak, Gayatri. “Can the subaltern speak?” (1988)
5. ^ Dinitia Smith, "Creating a Stir Wherever She Goes," New York Times (9 February 2002) B7.
6. ^ Spivak, Gayatri. “Can the subaltern speak?.” Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (1988): 271–313.
7. ^ Oberlin College Commencement 2011 – Oberlin College. Oberlin.edu. Retrieved on 2011-06-21.
8. ^ Clarity Is King – Eric Adler on Postmodernists' Limpid Bursts. New Partisan. Retrieved on 2011-06-21.
9. ^ Death sentences. New Statesman. Retrieved on 2011-06-21.
10. ^ "letters". London Review of Books 21 (12). 10 June 1999. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v21/n12/letters.html. 
11. ^ "letters". London Review of Books 21 (13). 1 July 1999. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v21/n13/letters.html. 
12. ^ Terry Eagleton, "In the Gaudy Supermarket," London Review of Books (13 May 1999).
13. ^ ^{a b c} "Terror: A Speech After 9-11". boundary 2 (Duke University Press) 31 (2). 2004. http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/boundary/v031/31.2spivak.html. 
14. ^ Alexander, Edward (10 January 2003). "Evil educators defend the indefensible". Jerusalem Post. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/jpost/access/276661721.html?dids=276661721:276661721&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Jan+10%2C+2003&author=EDWARD+ALEXANDER&pub=Jerusalem+Post&edition=&startpage=09.A&desc=Evil+educators+defend+the+indefensible. 
15. ^ Quoted in Liz McMillen, "The Education of Gayatri Spivak," Chronicle of Higher Education (14 September 2007) B16.

External links

• 'Righting Wrongs' (Read full article)
• 'Woman' as Theatre in Radical 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 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

Bibliography

• Stephen Morton, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007).
• Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Donna Landry, and Gerald M. MacLean, The Spivak reader: selected works of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Routledge, 1996).

Persondata
Name	Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	February 24, 1942
Place of birth	Calcutta, British India
Date of death
Place of death