October 21, 2005
Three Way Dialogue

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Subaltern Studies- Deconstructing Historiography:

... Indeed a general sobriety of time will not allow them to emphasize sufficiently that they are themselves bringing hegemonic historiography to crisis. This leads them to describe the clandestine operation of supplementarity as the inexorable speculative logic of the dialectic....
... this is the always asymmetrical relationship between the interpretation and transformation of the world which Marx marks in the eleventh thesis on Feuerbach. There the contrast is between the words haben interpretiert and zu ver-ändern. The latter expression matches haben interpretiert neither in its Latinate philosophical weight nor in its signification of propriety and completion, as transformieren would have done. Although not an unusual word, it is not the most common word for 'change' in German- verandeln. In the open-ended 'making-other'- ver-änderung- of the properly self-identical- adequately interpretiert- lies an allegory of the theorist's relationship to his subject matter...

P.J. Thum:

Spivak's Deconstructing Historiography has the singular effect of producing an inexorable feeling of immeasurable inadequacy in the reader. Whether this effect is intended or unintentional, her single-minded and impenetrable prose creates a mental space in which none dare to penetrate, and thus is perhaps self-serving in that it justifies her own academic credentials. While this writer is personally in awe of her ability to create such a text, he is disappointed with her inability to communicate her ideas effectively.

B.B. Chaudhuri:

The 'theoretical intervention' by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is as abstruse as Dipesh Chakrabarty's discussion is lucid. She examines some postulates of the 'subaltern' historiography in the light of recent advances in linguistics. However, she addresses readers as a specialist would talk to a small coterie of specialists. Since the present reviewer does not belong to this charmed circle, he feels it would be foolhardy of him to try to glean any pearl from the depth of this bafflingly obscure piece of composition.

P.J. Thum:

You said it, man.

Posted by pj at 05:59 PM

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Comments

Spivak is arguably one of the worst offenders when it comes to self-serving and hopelessly obfuscatory academic prose. The ironic thing, of course, is that she's writing about Subaltern Studies, which were first launched to liberate scholarship from "elitist" concerns. The problem is that her work alienates everyone who isn't clued into this "in-speak". The result is that Spivak and others like her only talk amongst themselves, instead of engaging with the average person-on-the-street.

A professor of mine once related a story about Spivak. She was going on at length in a class, when a graduate student timidly but bravely put up her hand. The student asked Spivak to clarify her point, at which point Spivak snapped back, "Don't fetishise clarity!".

I say it's a clear cut case of the Emperor, or Empress, having no clothes.

HollyQ spoke on October 21, 2005 09:36 PM

Reminds me of trying to translate Barthes in a translation class, and objecting to the translation suggested by the tutor on the grounds that it was meaningless, to which my tutor replied "Of course it is: we are talking about Barthes here, it is supposed to be meaningless".

Much as a lot of this kind of theory would claim- as Spivak does- that this kind of wilful obscurantism is a strategy to undermine the phallogocentricity of philosophical discourse, I am firmly of the opinion that it often serves to disguise the fact that they have relatively little to say that is penetrating or relevant. Personally, as I was saying to a friend in relation to Derrida, possibly the worst offender in the inpenetrability stakes, I believe that the best thinkers are those who are able to convey their ideas clearly and succintly, and this doesn't have to mean dumbing down or fetishising clarity. It is a question of having the intellectual rigour and command of language to express ones ideas.

Steph spoke on October 22, 2005 02:59 AM

Interesting - my discussion group just brought up the subject of Gayatri and sub-altern studies (note: the word sub-altern itself appears verbose, doesn't it?)

We didn't actually read her text - someone brought up her work in the context of the discussion. Actually, such impenetrable prose appears to be a style favoured in the past - it reminds me of Toynbee, who'd go off in a tangent with German, Latin or any number of European languages, expecting the reader to know what he's going on about.

By contrast, (for want of a prominent Indian woman writer to compare with) I like the style of Arundhati Roy's essays. Her subject is also critical, of globalisation, Indian imperial designs and such. But hers is much more lyrical writing, and certainly does not "fetishize clarity" by dumbing down.

Wei Yi spoke on October 22, 2005 01:04 PM
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