Spivakian Thought

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1942) is a scholar renowned for her critique of postcolonial studies, her critical translation of Jacques Derrida's philosophy, and the provocative question she raised in a 1988 essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Her answer was a resounding “no,” an assertion stimulating much analysis and debate since that time. Spivak was born in India and received an undergraduate English degree from the University of Calcutta and graduate degrees from Cornell University. Her scholarship, which transgresses disciplinary and theoretical boundaries, draws from literary criticism, poststructuralism, Marxism, deconstruction (particularly Derrida), feminism, and cultural studies. She has produced incisive critiques of imperialism, historiography (the theories and practices of historical research), academia, knowledge construction, globalization, international feminism, and terrorism among others. Her work demonstrates unrelenting concern for ...