Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
The most oppressed people cannot make themselves heard, because even those who speak for them impose their own categories.
Placement
Literary theorist and one of the founders of postcolonial theory (and translator of Derrida’s “Of Grammatology”): “Can the Subaltern Speak?” asks who may speak for whom.
Key ideas
- The subaltern
- Strategic essentialism
- Epistemic violence
Influence
Influenced by 3
Karl Marx
influenced by
Spivak read Marx’s distinction between political representation (vertreten) and portrayal (darstellen) in The Eighteenth Brumaire against Foucault and Deleuze (‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, 1988). G. C. Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1988); “Scattered Speculations on the Question of Value”, Diacritics 15 (1985); K. Marx, Der achtzehnte Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte (1852)
Evidence: AI draft
Karl Marx › 1818–1883
Antonio Gramsci
influenced by
Spivak took Gramsci’s term ‘subaltern’, via Subaltern Studies, and asked whether those excluded from hegemonic representation can be heard (‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, 1988). G. C. Spivak, “Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography” (1985), in In Other Worlds (1987); “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1988); SEP “Antonio Gramsci”
Evidence: AI draft
Antonio Gramsci › 1891–1937
Jacques Derrida
influenced by
Spivak translated Derrida’s Of Grammatology (1976) with a long preface and used deconstruction to ask who speaks for the subaltern (‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, 1988). J. Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. and preface G. C. Spivak (1976); G. C. Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, in C. Nelson and L. Grossberg (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (1988); SEP “Jacques Derrida”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Jacques Derrida › 1930–2004
Influenced 1
Kristie Dotson
influenced
Dotson took the term ‘epistemic violence’ from Spivak’s ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ (1988) and analysed it as a failure of audiences to take up speakers’ testimony (2011). K. Dotson, “Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing”, Hypatia 26 (2011); G. C. Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, in C. Nelson and L. Grossberg (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (1988)
Evidence: AI draft
Kristie Dotson › contemporary
Criticism
Criticizes 2
Gilles Deleuze
criticised
Spivak objected that Deleuze, with Foucault in ‘Intellectuals and Power’ (1972), conflates two senses of representation, speaking-for (vertreten) and portraying (darstellen) (‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, 1988). G. C. Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, in C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (1988); M. Foucault & G. Deleuze, “Les intellectuels et le pouvoir”, L’Arc 49 (1972)
Evidence: AI draft
Gilles Deleuze › 1925–1995
Michel Foucault
criticised
Spivak argued that Foucault’s analysis of power stays within Europe, ignoring the epistemic violence of imperialism and the international division of labour (‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, 1988). G. C. Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, in C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (1988)
Evidence: AI draft
Michel Foucault › 1926–1984
Works
Western intellectuals who claim to let the oppressed speak silence them once again.
Position
Spivak combines deconstruction, Marxism and feminism to examine how knowledge and power work across the colonial divide. In her essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” she argued that the most marginalized, above all poor women in the colonized world, are silenced twice: by colonial power and by the well-meaning Western intellectuals who claim to speak for them. She called this “epistemic violence.” To make political struggle possible without fixing identities, she proposed a “strategic essentialism,” a provisional and self-aware use of group identities. Her work became a cornerstone of postcolonial studies and shaped debates in literary theory, feminism and the humanities worldwide.
Life & context
Spivak was born in Calcutta in 1942 and studied English at Presidency College there. In 1961 she went to the United States and earned her doctorate at Cornell under Paul de Man. Her translation of Derrida’s Of Grammatology, with a long preface, made her known in 1976. She has taught at Columbia University since 1991 and has long supported rural schools in West Bengal.
Further main works
- In Other Worlds (1987)
- A Critique of Postcolonial Reason (1999)
- Death of a Discipline (2003)
Appears in
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