Gayatri Spivak: The Trajectory of the Subaltern in My Work 

We do the same with Pakistani literature

@@ghazalshaikh6887 which sections of society in Pakistan constitute Subalterns, could you please tell me

Rather funny and disingenuous for Spivak to exhibit herself as a prideful Indian in full attire, all the while teaching and collecting a huge salary in a White-created university, Columbia University, always condemning White-created countries, while India is still the most racist, caste organized country in the world.

How does wearing her normal clothes make her "prideful"? Are you sure you know what "disingenuous" means? And how is saying that subaltern people or cultures have the right to speak for themselves the same thing as criticizing white people? Saying that nonwhite people should have a voice does not mean that white people should not have a voice. The U.S., by the way, was not created by only white people. Native Americans were doing just fine before Europeans showed up, and the country as we know it now, would be much different without the slaves forced to come here from Africa and the Caribbean.

Mary! impressive

@@ricardoduchesne2205 India is racist and has a social hierarchy which is very asymmetrical. It can be extremely challenging for the lower rungs to make the cut. The superlatives of "the most racist.." I am not sure. Having lived in white, western spaces also, I realize racism and white supremacy are the foundations those nations...though brown people sometimes make the cut. I agree with your criticism of India, not sure if the superlative is fitting.

@ They will start their discourse. Power is exercised through generation of a certain body of knowledge. And for a long time this agency of generating knowledge and discourse has been consolidated in the hands of elite in all forms. So in hindu society the Brahman caste in colonial context the colonisers. They spoke and defined the world with them as center and others in relation to them. The fault lies in this metanarrative or universality of their claims which when circulated were accepted and internalised not just by the oppressors and elite of the given system but also by the victims or subalterns within that system. All that changes when the subaltern is given a chance to start her discourse. Spoken word has such power see semiotics. Our whole reality is textual, based on language. See Bible God said let their be light and there was. Now I'm not a Christian but I'm using it as a metaphor to explain the power of spoken word. Anyhow gayatri or others are not subaltern in themselves. They're speaking about and for subaltern but they aren't one themselves. The true subaltern won't have such literary and canonical power that writing and documentation gives but their culture is in their orality. Oral literature and language in that sense becomes the carrier of their culture. Their idioms represent a special way of thinking. So all in all subalterns speaking for themselves is a beginning of a new discourse which will alter reality as we know it and also socio- power relations.

@@asmanaureen9874 I believe that that won't be the likely case. Because almost every system we have in existence has two elements one the rulers or the elitist within it and the ruled or lower members within it. The equilibrium is maintained between these two groups when they both adhere to the norms and expected roles that they have been assigned by the system. So the rulers behaving like ruled is peculiar and discouraged and ruled trying to achieve the status of ruler is punished or penalised. See in patriarchy or in capitalism or within a religious community everywhere. So when the subaltern escape the burden of its relational and oppressed position it is likely to fall on someone else. When we started thinking about women rights, black women started their mission and womanism came, and in India people understood the difference between women of elite class and caste and lower castes. Also with time power equation changes. For ex french replaced African languages during colonial period and under nazi Germany's influence french was replaced by german in some places.

Yup Yup, great entertainment for us also.

Its because she evades critique, she uses middle class bengalis, but they are upper caste, with a lot of social capital. the use of middle class obscures her location within the structure of indian society where she does her "field work." She's not middle class on any scale. Her caste oppresses lowercaste people, and with a voice and clout as large as hers', the obscuring of her social location is weird cause she talks about learning from the subaltern, and 'radical alterity.' Which are all sound in concept but she rarely practices it, shes' very defensive when critiqued. That is still fine, but what she does is evades this critique and reformulates her position with the critique in mind and hence erasing the critique. The first 10 mins of her lack of grace is her dancing around this critique. Subaltern studies and her also partly by association got critiqued on not taking into account the structure of Caste and had to stop using the term subaltern.

I am also not so much an expert in theory..... Yet let me try to reflect on this statement.... Let us take ,for instance, a child. The child is first of all a human animal. Then the child can be a boy or a girl or some other category. Then this child can be a son or a daughter or an orphan or something else. Thus it goes on..... All these ( boy, girl, orphan, son etc.) can be called identities. Identity is how the being/thing assumes itself as its self. Then let us take the idea of subjectivity. It is associated with action or actions ( both as presence and as absence) When one speak about the identity of a citizen or the subjectivity of a citizen, the difference is in the nuance. The identity is really a membership, where as subjectivity is the activity or absence or limits of the activity brought about on the being/thing because of the identity or identities or lack of it or them. Now let us think about your ststement ' Subject formation exceeds the borders of the intending subject'. First, let us take the subjectivity of a teacher or a student or a citizen etc. Of course these different terms mean identity when they merely mean membership in a group. But here we take these terms not merely as a membership but also as words of actions, of privilages or lack of privilages etc. Hence these terms here becomes terms showing subjectivity. So what is meant by 'intending subject' in your quotation is the generally expected image or the average attributes associated with these subjects ( like teacher , student, citizen ) . The next phrase to take up in your quotation is 'subject formation.' No child is a born Student. No man is a born teacher. One is formed to become a student or teacher. This process of becoming a subject is the formation of the subject. There is a process for one to become any of these subjects be it a citizen, boy, girl, orphan , mother, father, priest, stranger etc. , Now these subjectivities may not always be exclusive of one another. It is possible to assume an ideal context where one can perform ones subjectivities perfectly well both as a son and a student. But it is understandable that the borders that surrounds these different subjectivities do not fall perfectly well upon one another. Hence the statement ' Subject formation exceeds the borders of intending subject' This is my explanation. I am not sure how far I am correct or clear. Besides I didn't know the text ( as Gayatri Spivak responded to one of the questions in the video) from where you have taken this statement.

And with whom do you agree?

@@hughmac13 It's unclear that there's a contradiction between the Spivak and Trilling quotes: depends on how you interpret the relationship between them.

Hippo Potamus Moreover, with just 20 minutes or so into the video, I see her invalidating the criticisms only. Where are her arguments! With such an unpalatable vocab, you really cover up your actual knowledge of subalterns.

All she does is hypothesizing then waiting for other scholars to do the leg work that she does not want to do. she wrote her work on subaltern before reading Gramsci and before reading the subaltern studies, then reads, alters, corrects and redirects. And when the use of 'subaltern' was critiqued she is feeling the need to give the context of her essay and then reabstracting a new definition of the word.

Isn't that a good thing? Correcting oneself?

The communists of Bengal have destroyed the country and state and also the world. Nothing to be proud of these communists

@@vals4207 no,but surely someone who understands her critical thinking and theories.That's why we study her in literature.

Same

you must be kidding me dude 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣As someone who's aware of both the spivaks, man, you're today's winner.

@@ujan9837 to be honest i dont remember making this comment.🫣 I need to watch the video again

A mind that cannot perceive knowledge without attaching an prejudice to it

Fred Lee you know damn well she was making a separate point using Bacon (in the context of HIS time) to illustrate it. Stop.

It's mind boggling how many tangents she goes off on while saying one thing, it is a zig-zag, looping, rollercoasting mad path to what she wants to say.

That's the point?

Roy is an activist/author. What’s the relation?

Below arvg iq then my room temp

This is not a lecture. This is a keynote address meant for academics. Not students.

@@sivawright accurate use of the word 'academic.'

what fluidity are u talkn abt?

damnn seven damn years ago eh? hope time has done wonders for your understanding and you are doing better since you were OBVIOUSLY in an incredibly dark place while writing this comment you must have been for it takes great grief for an average man to be this, uh, difficult