Gayatri C. Spivak
- See also Wikipedia's article about "Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak".
- See also Gayatri C. Spivak's entry in Columbia's directory.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is a vociferous literary critic who was named a University Professor in March 2007. She is also a founder of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, a participant in elementary and intermediate Chinese classes, and an occasional instructor.
She is a noted expert and translator of the ideas of Jacques Derrida, and is known for helping found the discipline of postcolonialism altogether, particularly the concept of the subaltern.[1] She has also been name-checked in a song by electro-punk band Le Tigre.
Criticism
Some students have found Spivak's methods of instruction arbitrary, capricious, and vain. One attempt to team-teach a course with Hamid Dabashi led to legendarily disastrous results.[2]
Her scholarship has been criticized for using "unreadable jargon" and forcing a false dichotomy between "white, Western, imperialist males" and "designated, politically correct victims" on her opponents to bludgeon them into submission. [3]
References
External links
- Gayatri C. Spivak - Faculty Profile, Comparative Literature and Society department
- Press release announcing Gayatri Spivak's appointment as University Professor
