Postmodern
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
b. 1942
Indian scholar, literary theorist, and feminist critic
- British Raj · Dominion of India · India
- Indian Writing in English
- Postcolonial Theory
- Deconstruction
- Feminist Criticism
- Literary Theory
About
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is an Indian literary theorist and feminist critic. She is a professor at Columbia University and a founding member of Columbia's Institute for Comparative Literature and Society.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Portrait by Robert Crc (FAL) via Wikimedia Commons.
Life on the Timeline
Major Works
No works have been hung in this gallery yet — the acquisitions team is at work.
Exam Dossier
Most-asked topics
- "Can the Subaltern Speak?" (1988)
- Translation and preface to Derrida's Of Grammatology (1976)
- The concept of the subaltern and Subaltern Studies
- Strategic essentialism
- Epistemic violence and worlding
- "Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism" (1985)
- Spivak's feminist critique of Western/French feminism
- Spivak's place among Said and Bhabha in postcolonial theory
Previous-year themes
- Meaning and implications of 'the subaltern cannot speak'
- Spivak's critique of Foucault and Deleuze on representation
- Spivak as translator and interpreter of Derridean deconstruction
- The concept of strategic essentialism in identity politics
- Spivak's reading of Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea
- Key terms: epistemic violence, worlding, othering
- Spivak's contribution to feminist and postcolonial criticism
Common confusions
- Treating 'subaltern' as a loose synonym for 'the poor' or 'the marginalized' generally, rather than Spivak's precise Gramscian sense of groups structurally outside hegemonic power and representation.
- Assuming Spivak founded the Subaltern Studies Collective; she was closely engaged with and critical of the group led by historians such as Ranajit Guha, not its founder.
- Confusing "Can the Subaltern Speak?" (1988) with "Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism" (1985) — distinct essays with distinct arguments and dates.
- Treating Spivak as the sole originator of postcolonial theory; she is usually grouped with Edward Said and Homi Bhabha as one of three foundational figures.
- Crediting Spivak as author rather than translator of Derrida's Of Grammatology, when her landmark contribution was the translation and its theoretical Preface.
- Reading 'strategic essentialism' as an endorsement of essentialism itself, rather than a provisional, tactical use of group identity that Spivak elsewhere critiques.
Memory tricks
SUBALTERN = pushed 'sub' (below) and made 'alter' (other) by power — those Spivak says cannot simply 'speak' within existing discourse.
Translate before Theorize: 1976 Of Grammatology (translation) comes before 1988 Can the Subaltern Speak? (theory).
Three women, one critique: Jane Eyre + Wide Sargasso Sea = Spivak's 1985 imperialism essay.
'D' for Death, 'D' for Discipline, '03' for 2003 — Death of a Discipline.
Strategic Essentialism = borrowing an identity 'strategically', like a costume, not wearing it as skin.
