View source for Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

{{short description|Indian scholar and feminist critic (born 1942)}}
{{Use Indian English|date=June 2025}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2025}}
{{Infobox philosopher
|region           = [[Western philosophy]]
|era              = [[Contemporary philosophy]]
|image            = File:Gayatri Spivak on Subversive Festival.jpg
|caption          = Spivak in 2012
|name             = Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
|native_name      = 
|native_name_lang = bn 
|birth_date       = {{birth date and age|1942|2|24|df=y}}
|birth_place      = [[Calcutta]], [[Bengal Presidency|Bengal Province]],<br/ >[[British Raj|British India]]<br/>(now [[Kolkata]], [[West Bengal]], India)
|spouse            = {{plainlist|
* {{marriage|Talbot Spivak|1964|1977}}
* [[Basudev Chatterji]]
}}
|education        = [[University of Calcutta]] (MA)<br />[[Cornell University]] (PhD)<br/ >
|thesis_title     = The Great Wheel: Stages in the Personality of Yeats's Lyric Speaker<ref>{{citation |title=The great wheel |work=[[Cornell University Library]] |access-date=5 July 2025 |url=https://catalog.library.cornell.edu/catalog/1457347 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250705202556/https://catalog.library.cornell.edu/catalog/1457347 |archive-date=5 July 2025 |url-status=live}}</ref>
|thesis_year      = 1967
|alma_mater       = [[Cornell University]]
|doctoral_advisor = [[Paul de Man]]<ref>{{citation |last=Yeghiayan |first=Eddie |title=Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: A Bibliography: On the Occasion of the 20th Wellek Library Lectures |work=[[University of California, Irvine School of Humanities|Critical Theory Institute, University of California, Irvine]] |date=2000 |page=1 |url=https://www.lib.uci.edu/library/publications/wellek/docs/Wellek2000GayatriSpivak.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220420000150/https://www.lib.uci.edu/library/publications/wellek/docs/Wellek2000GayatriSpivak.pdf |archive-date=20 April 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref>
|school_tradition = [[Continental philosophy]], [[postcolonialism]], [[deconstruction]]
|institutions     = 
|main_interests   = [[Literary criticism]], [[feminism]], [[Marxism]], [[postcolonialism]]
|notable_ideas    = [[Strategic essentialism]], the [[Subaltern (postcolonialism)|Subaltern]], the [[Other (philosophy)|Other]]
}}

'''Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak''' ({{IPA|bn|ɡajotri t͡ʃɔkɾoborti spiβak}}; {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FBA}} ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|s|p|ɪ|v|æ|k}};<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZHH4ALRFHw "Gayatri Spivak: The Trajectory of the Subaltern in My Work"]<!--at 0:43--></ref> born 24 February 1942) is an Indian [[Scholarly method|scholar]], [[Literary theory|literary theorist]], and [[Feminist Criticism|feminist critic]].<ref>"Spivak, Gayatri." Encyclopædia Britannica. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2014.</ref> She is a [[University Professor (Columbia)|University Professor]] at [[Columbia University]] and a founding member of the establishment's Institute for Comparative Literature and Society.<ref name="CU">{{Cite web|url=http://english.columbia.edu/people/profile/409|title=Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak|website=Department of English and Comparative Literature|publisher=Columbia University in the City of New York|access-date=22 March 2016|archive-date=11 January 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180111012404/http://english.columbia.edu/people/profile/409|url-status=live}}</ref>

Considered as one of the most influential [[Postcolonialism|postcolonial]] [[intellectual]]s, Spivak is best known for her essay "[[Can the Subaltern Speak]]?" and her translation of and introduction to [[Jacques Derrida]]'s ''[[Of Grammatology|De la grammatologie]]''.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3hurBgAAQBAJ&q=%22one+of+the+most+influential+postcolonial+intellectuals%22+Spivak&pg=PA210|title=From Agamben to Zizek: Contemporary Critical Theorists: Contemporary Critical Theorists|last=Simons|first=Jon|date=10 September 2010|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=9780748643264|language=en|access-date=17 October 2020|archive-date=17 July 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220717125801/https://books.google.com/books?id=3hurBgAAQBAJ&q=%22one+of+the+most+influential+postcolonial+intellectuals%22+Spivak&pg=PA210|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Morton|first1=Stephen|editor1-last=Simons|editor1-first=Jon|title=From Agamben To Zizek Contemporary Critical Theorists|date=2010|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|location=Edinburgh|isbn=978-0-7486-3973-1|page=210|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b0wTTPRsPv8C|language=en|access-date=17 October 2020|archive-date=7 April 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220407011737/https://books.google.com/books?id=b0wTTPRsPv8C|url-status=live}}</ref> She has also translated many works of [[Mahasweta Devi]] into English, with separate critical notes on Devi's life and writing style, notably ''Imaginary Maps'' and ''Breast Stories.''

Spivak was awarded the 2012 [[Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy]] for being "a critical theorist and educator speaking for the [[humanities]] against [[intellectual]] [[colonialism]] in relation to the [[globalized]] world."<ref>{{cite web|title=The Kyoto Prize / Laureates / Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak |url=http://www.inamori-f.or.jp/laureates/k28_c_gayatri/prf_e.html |website=Inamori Foundation |access-date=19 April 2016 |language=en |quote=A Critical Theorist and Educator Speaking for the Humanities Against Intellectual Colonialism in Relation to the Globalized World. |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160316234334/http://www.inamori-f.or.jp/laureates/k28_c_gayatri/prf_e.html |archive-date=16 March 2016  }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Columbia University Professor Gayatri Spivak Selected as 2012 Kyoto Prize Laureate in Arts and Philosophy|url=http://kyotoprize-us.org/columbia-university-professor-gayatri-spivak-selected-as-2012-kyoto-prize-laureate-in-arts-and-philosophy-2/|website=Kyoto Symposium Organization|publisher=Kyoto Prize USA|access-date=19 April 2016|archive-date=6 May 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160506053413/http://kyotoprize-us.org/columbia-university-professor-gayatri-spivak-selected-as-2012-kyoto-prize-laureate-in-arts-and-philosophy-2/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Professor Gayatri Spivak Selected as 2012 Kyoto Prize Laureate in Arts and Philosophy|url=http://news.columbia.edu/content/professor-gayatri-spivak-selected-2012-kyoto-prize-laureate-arts-and-philosophy|website=Columbia News|publisher=Columbia University|access-date=19 April 2016|quote=Known as the 'Nobel of the arts,' the Kyoto Prize is an international award presented annually to individuals who have contributed significantly to the scientific, cultural and spiritual betterment of mankind in categories of advanced technology, basic sciences and arts and philosophy.|archive-date=21 June 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160621103307/http://news.columbia.edu/content/professor-gayatri-spivak-selected-2012-kyoto-prize-laureate-arts-and-philosophy|url-status=live}}</ref> In 2013, she received the [[Padma Bhushan]], the third highest civilian award given by the [[Republic Of India|Republic of India]].<ref name=pib4>{{cite web|title=Padma Awards Announced|url=http://www.pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=91838|publisher=[[Ministry of Home Affairs (India)]]|date=25 January 2013|access-date=25 January 2013|archive-date=19 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181119042602/http://www.pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=91838|url-status=live}}</ref> In 2025, Spivak received the [[Holberg Prize]] for "her groundbreaking work in the fields of literary theory and philosophy", per the selection committee.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |date=13 March 2025 |title=Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Named 2025 Holberg Prize Laureate |url=https://news.columbia.edu/news/gayatri-chakravorty-spivak-named-2025-holberg-prize-laureate |access-date=16 March 2025 |website=Columbia News |language=en}}</ref>

Although associated with [[postcolonialism]], Spivak confirmed her separation from the discipline in her book ''A [[Critique]] of [[Postcolonial]] [[Reason]]'' (1999), a position she maintains in a 2021 essay titled "How the Heritage of Postcolonial Studies Thinks Colonialism Today",  published by ''[[Janus]] Unbound: Journal of Critical Studies''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Spivak |first1=Gayatri Chakravorty |title=How the Heritage of Postcolonial Studies Thinks Colonialism Today |journal=Janus Unbound: Journal of Critical Studies |date=11 November 2021 |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=19–29 |url=https://journals.library.mun.ca/index.php/JU/article/view/2309/1826 }}{{primary source inline|date=October 2023}}</ref>

==Life==

=== Early life ===
Spivak was born on 24 February 1942 as '''Gayatri Chakravorty''' in [[Kolkata|Calcutta]], India, into a [[Bengalis|Bengali]] [[Brahmin]] family.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Katyal |first=Anjum |date=24 February 2022 |title='I'm a happy old girl': The Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak 80th birthday interview |url=https://scroll.in/article/1018017/im-a-happy-old-girl-gayatri-chakravorty-spivak-the-80th-birthday-interview |access-date=23 February 2025 |website=Scroll.in |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":0" /> Her father was Pares Chandra Chakravorty, a doctor, and mother was Sivani Chakravorty, a charitable worker.<ref name="reader">{{cite book|editor1-last=Landry|editor1-first=Donna|editor2-last=MacLean|editor2-first=Gerald|title=The Spivak Reader|chapter=Reading Spivak|date=1996|publisher=Routledge|location=New York|isbn=978-0415910019|pages=1–4|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gCHcsaSi-sUC&pg=PT12|access-date=21 April 2016|archive-date=4 January 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200104025848/https://books.google.com/books?id=gCHcsaSi-sUC&pg=PT12|url-status=live}}</ref> Her great-great-grandfather was Biharilal Bhaduri, a physician advocating [[homeopathy]] and a close friend of the Bengali reformer [[Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar]].<ref>{{citation |last=Spivak |first=Gayatri Chakravorty |title=If Only |journal=Scholar and Feminist Online |volume=4 |issue=2 |date=2006 |url=https://sfonline.barnard.edu/heilbrun/spivak_01.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141104050947/https://sfonline.barnard.edu/heilbrun/spivak_01.htm |archive-date=4 November 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{citation |last=Kona |first=Prakash |author-link=Prakash Kona |title=What Sort of a Meaningless Term Is 'Brahmanical'? |work=Eurasia Review |date=26 May 2024 |access-date=5 July 2025 |url=https://www.eurasiareview.com/26052024-to-be-or-not-to-be-a-brahmin-oped/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240526002056/https://www.eurasiareview.com/26052024-to-be-or-not-to-be-a-brahmin-oped/ |archive-date=26 May 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{citation |last=Gudavarthy |first=Ajay |title=The Gayatri Spivak Controversy Is About the Implosion of 'Subalternity' in Public Discourse |work=[[The Wire (India)|The Wire]] |date=24 May 2024 |access-date=5 July 2025 |url=https://thewire.in/rights/the-gayatri-spivak-controversy-exploring-the-implosion-of-subalternity-in-public-discourse |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250705202519/https://thewire.in/rights/the-gayatri-spivak-controversy-exploring-the-implosion-of-subalternity-in-public-discourse |archive-date=5 July 2025 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{citation |last=Chattopadhyay |first=Pradip |title=The reformer as a healer |work=[[New Statesman]] |date=9 October 2024 |access-date=5 July 2025 |url=https://www.thestatesman.com/opinion/the-reformer-as-a-healer-1503351561.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241008215034/https://www.thestatesman.com/opinion/the-reformer-as-a-healer-1503351561.html |archive-date=8 October 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref> After completing her secondary education at [[St. John's Diocesan Girls' Higher Secondary School]], Spivak attended [[Presidency College, Kolkata]] under the [[University of Calcutta]], from which she graduated in 1959.<ref name="reader" />

Spivak has been married twice—first to Talbot Spivak (1937–2006), a fellow Cornell student, from 1964 to 1977, and then until 1992 to historian [[Basudev Chatterji]].<ref name=":0">{{cite news |last1=Smith |first1=Dinitia |title=Creating a Stir Wherever She Goes |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/09/arts/creating-a-stir-wherever-she-goes.html |work=The New York Times |date=9 February 2002 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160320030722/http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/09/arts/creating-a-stir-wherever-she-goes.html?pagewanted=all |archive-date=20 March 2016 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Her first husband published an autobiographical novel centred on their early marriage, ''The Bride Wore the Traditional Gold'', in 1972.<ref name="UC">{{citation |last=Choudhury |first=Uttara |title=Star Indian professor Gayatri Spivak wins $630,000 Kyoto Prize |work=[[Firstpost]] |date=26 June 2012 |url=https://www.firstpost.com/world/star-indian-professor-gayatri-spivak-wins-630000-kyoto-prize-357051.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120728010638/https://www.firstpost.com/world/star-indian-professor-gayatri-spivak-wins-630000-kyoto-prize-357051.html |archive-date=28 July 2012 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{citation |last=Paranjape |first=Makarand R. |author-link=Makarand Paranjape |title=Why Be Happy When You Could Be in Love? |journal=Southeast Asian Review of English |volume=54 |issue=2 |year=2017 |page=10 |doi=10.22452/sare.vol54no2.2 |url=https://ejournal.um.edu.my/index.php/SARE/article/download/10237/7269/20512|doi-access=free }}</ref>{{sfn|Tzanelli|2021|p=2511}} She has no children.<ref name=":0" />

=== 1960s and 1970s ===
In 1959, upon graduation, she secured employment as an English tutor for forty hours a week. Her MA [[thesis]] was on the representation of innocence in [[William Wordsworth|Wordsworth]] with [[M.H. Abrams]]. In 1961, Spivak joined the graduate program in English at [[Cornell University]] in the United States, travelling on money borrowed on a so-called "life mortgage". In 1962, unable to secure financial aid from the department of English, she transferred to a new program called [[Comparative Literature]], although she had insufficient preparation in French and German. Her [[dissertation]] was under the guidance of the program's first director, [[Paul de Man]], titled ''Myself Must I Remake: The Life and Poetry of [[W. B. Yeats|W.B. Yeats]]''.<ref name="reader" /> In 1963–1964, she attended [[Girton College, Cambridge]], as a research student under the supervision of Professor [[Thomas Rice Henn|T.R. Henn]], writing on the representation of the stages of development of the lyric subject in the poetry of Yeats. She presented a course in the summer of 1963 on "Yeats and the Theme of Death" at the Yeats Summer School in [[Sligo|Sligo, Ireland]]. (She returned there in 1987 to present Yeats' position within post-coloniality.){{citation needed|date=October 2016}} While at Cornell, she served as the second female member of the [[Telluride Association]].{{sfn|Tzanelli|2021|p=2511}}

In the Fall of 1965, Spivak became an [[assistant professor]] in the English department of the [[University of Iowa]]. She received tenure in 1970. She did not publish her [[doctoral dissertation]], "The Great Wheel: Stages in the Personality of Yeats's Lyric Speaker" (Cornell, 1967), but decided to write a critical book on Yeats that would be accessible to her undergraduate students without compromising her intellectual positions. The result was her first book, written for young adults, ''Myself Must I Remake: The Life and Poetry of W.B. Yeats''.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/gayatri-chakravorty-spivak/myself-must-i-remake-the-life-and-poetry-of-w-b/|title=MYSELF MUST I REMAKE: The Life and Poetry of W. B. Yeats by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak {{!}} Kirkus Reviews|language=en-us|access-date=10 March 2018|archive-date=4 January 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200104025242/https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/gayatri-chakravorty-spivak/myself-must-i-remake-the-life-and-poetry-of-w-b/|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1967, on her regular attempts at self-improvement, Spivak purchased a book, by an author unknown to her, entitled ''[[Of Grammatology|De la grammatologie]]''. She decided to translate this book, and wrote a long translator's preface. This publication was immediately a success, and the "Translator's Preface" began to be used around the world as an introduction to the philosophy of [[deconstruction]] launched by the author, [[Jacques Derrida]], whom Spivak met in 1971.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://conversations.e-flux.com/t/gayatri-spivak-on-derrida-the-subaltern-and-her-life-and-work/4198|title=Gayatri Spivak on Derrida, the subaltern, and her life and work|website=e-flux conversations|language=en|access-date=9 March 2018|archive-date=10 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180310010714/https://conversations.e-flux.com/t/gayatri-spivak-on-derrida-the-subaltern-and-her-life-and-work/4198|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1974, at the University of Iowa, Spivak founded the MFA in Translation in the department of Comparative Literature.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.writinguniversity.org/content/writing-iowa | title=Writing at Iowa &#124; the Writing University | access-date=19 March 2016 | archive-date=17 June 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190617150913/https://www.writinguniversity.org/content/writing-iowa | url-status=live }}</ref> The following year, she became the Director of the Program in Comparative Literature and was promoted to a full professorship. In 1978, she was National Humanities Professor at the [[University of Chicago]]. She received many subsequent residential [[visiting professorship]]s and fellowships. In 1978, she joined the [[University of Texas at Austin]] as professor of English and Comparative Literature.

=== 1980s to present ===
In 1982, she was appointed as the Longstreet Professor in English and Comparative Literature at [[Emory University]]. In 1986, at the [[University of Pittsburgh]], she became the first Mellon Professor of English. Here, she established the Cultural Studies program. From 1991, she was a member of faculty at [[Columbia University]] as Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities, where, in 2007, she was made University Professor in the Humanities.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak {{!}} The Department of English and Comparative Literature |url=https://english.columbia.edu/content/gayatri-chakravorty-spivak |access-date=2 April 2025 |website=english.columbia.edu}}</ref>

Since 1986, Spivak has been engaged in teaching and training adults and children among the landless illiterates on the border of [[West Bengal]] and [[Bihar]]/[[Jharkhand]]. She has stated that this sustained attempt in practical work has allowed her the limits of high theory more clearly. In 1997, her friend Lore Metzger, a survivor of the [[Nazi Germany|Third Reich]], left her $10,000 in her will, to help with the work of rural education. With this, Spivak established the Pares Chandra and Sivani Chakravorty Memorial Foundation for Rural Education, to which she contributed the majority of her Kyoto Prize.<ref name="UC" />

In May 2018, Spivak signed a collective letter to [[New York University]] to defend [[Avital Ronell]], a colleague of Spivak, against the charge of sexual abuse from NYU graduate student Nimrod Reitman. Spivak and the other signatories called the case a "legal nightmare" for Ronell and charged Reitman with conducting a "malicious campaign" against her. More specifically, the letter suggested that Ronell should be excused on the basis of the significance of her academic contributions. Many signatories were also concerned of the utilisation of feminist tools, like [[Title IX]], to take down feminists.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Greenberg |first1=Zoe |date=13 August 2018 |title=What Happens to #MeToo when a Feminist is the Accused? |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/13/nyregion/sexual-harassment-nyu-female-professor.html |work=The New York Times}}</ref> [[Judith Butler]], the chief signatory, subsequently apologised for certain aspects of the letter.<ref>{{cite web |last=Wang |first=Esther |date=17 August 2018 |title=What Are We to Make of the Case of Scholar Avital Ronell? |url=https://jezebel.com/what-are-we-to-make-of-the-case-of-scholar-avital-ronel-1828366966 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180831042146/https://jezebel.com/what-are-we-to-make-of-the-case-of-scholar-avital-ronel-1828366966 |archive-date=31 August 2018 |access-date=31 August 2018 |website=Jezebel}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=20 August 2018 |title=Judith Butler Explains Letter in Support of Avital Ronell |url=https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/letters/judith-butler-explains-letter-in-support-of-avital-ronell/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180830140614/https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/letters/judith-butler-explains-letter-in-support-of-avital-ronell/ |archive-date=30 August 2018 |access-date=31 August 2018}}</ref> NYU ultimately found Ronell guilty of sexual harassment and suspended her for a year.

In May 2024, Spivak was involved in a controversy where she repeatedly corrected the pronunciation of a [[Dalit]] graduate student Anshul Kumar who asked her a question as part of a discussion at an event in [[Jawaharlal Nehru University|Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi]]. Anshul Kumar shared in a Dalit blog about feeling humiliated and insulted during the incident.<ref>{{Cite web |last=rti_admin |date=28 May 2024 |title=Can Spivak listen? Reflections on the Spivak-Kumar Fracas |url=https://www.roundtableindia.co.in/does-spivak-listen-reflections-on-the-spivak-kumar-fracas/ |access-date=30 May 2024 |website=Round Table India |language=en-US}}</ref> Spivak remarked in an interview that Anshul Kumar "had not identified himself as a Dalit".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Lakshman |first=Abhinay |date=24 May 2024 |title=JNU student did not identify himself as Dalit: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak on row over seminar |url=https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/gayatri-spivak-on-jnu-row/article68212572.ece |access-date=30 May 2024 |work=The Hindu |language=en-IN |issn=0971-751X}}</ref> Dalit scholar Anilkumar Payyappilly Vijayan called the student's reaction "a strategy of counter-violence" against "the structural violence built into the very edifice of postcoloniality on which many dominant class intellectuals [like Spivak] have been comfortably placed".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Like a Nightmare on the Brains of the Living: The JNU Row and its Buried Underside |url=https://thewire.in/caste/like-a-nightmare-on-the-brains-of-the-living-the-jnu-row-and-its-buried-underside |access-date=30 May 2024 |website=The Wire |language=en}}</ref>

==Work==
[[File:Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.jpg|alt=Gayatri Spivak|thumb|Spivak speaking on "The Strength of Critique: Trajectories of Marxism–Feminism" at the Internationaler Kongress]]

Spivak rose to prominence with her translation of [[Derrida]]'s ''[[Of Grammatology|De la grammatologie]]'', which included a translator's introduction that has been described as "setting a new standard for self-reflexivity in prefaces".<ref name="spivak_reader">{{cite book |title=The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak |publisher=Routledge |year=1996 |isbn=9780415910019 |pages=1–4 |chapter=Reading Spivak |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gCHcsaSi-sUC&pg=PT12 |access-date=19 April 2016 |archive-date=4 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200104025848/https://books.google.com/books?id=gCHcsaSi-sUC&pg=PT12 |url-status=live }}</ref> After this, as a member of the "[[Subaltern Studies Collective]]", she carried out a series of historical studies and literary critiques of imperialism and international feminism. She has often referred to herself as a "practical [[Marxist]]-[[feminist]]-[[deconstruction]]ist".<ref name="thehindu">{{cite news |last=Lahiri |first=Bulan |date=6 February 2011 |title=Speaking to Spivak |newspaper=[[The Hindu]] |location=Chennai, India |url=http://www.thehindu.com/books/in-conversation-speaking-to-spivak/article1159208.ece |access-date=7 February 2011 |archive-date=24 April 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130424182808/http://www.thehindu.com/books/in-conversation-speaking-to-spivak/article1159208.ece |url-status=live }}</ref> Her predominant ethico-political concern has been for the space occupied by the subaltern, especially subaltern women, both in discursive practices and in institutions of Western cultures. [[Edward Said]] wrote of Spivak's work, "She pioneered the study in literary theory of non-Western women and produced one of the earliest and most coherent accounts of that role available to us."<ref>Dinitia Smith, [https://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/09/arts/creating-a-stir-wherever-she-goes.html "Creating a Stir Wherever She Goes,"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170501112532/http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/09/arts/creating-a-stir-wherever-she-goes.html |date=1 May 2017 }} ''New York Times'' (9 February 2002) B7.</ref>

Spivak has often been criticised for her cryptic prose.<ref>[http://newpartisan.squarespace.com/home/clarity-is-king-eric-adler-on-postmodernists-limpid-bursts.html Clarity Is King&nbsp;– Eric Adler on Postmodernists' Limpid Bursts] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190822033538/http://newpartisan.squarespace.com/home/clarity-is-king-eric-adler-on-postmodernists-limpid-bursts.html|date=22 August 2019}}. New Partisan. Retrieved on 22 August 2019.</ref><ref>[https://www.newstatesman.com/node/198134 Death sentences] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190822033550/https://www.newstatesman.com/node/198134|date=22 August 2019}}. New Statesman. Retrieved on 22 August 2019.</ref> [[Terry Eagleton]] laments that

{{blockquote|If colonial societies endure what Spivak calls 'a series of interruptions, a repeated tearing of time that cannot be sutured', much the same is true of her own overstuffed, excessively elliptical prose. She herself, unsurprisingly, reads the book's broken-backed structure in just this way, as an iconoclastic departure from 'accepted scholarly or critical practice'. But the ellipses, the heavy-handed jargon, the cavalier assumption that you know what she means, or that if you don't she doesn't much care, are as much the overcodings of an academic coterie as a smack in the face for conventional scholarship.<ref>Terry Eagleton, "[http://www.lrb.co.uk/v21/n10/eagl01_.html In the Gaudy Supermarket] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061210174722/http://www.lrb.co.uk/v21/n10/eagl01_.html |date=10 December 2006 }}," ''London Review of Books'' (13 May 1999).</ref>}}

Writing for the ''[[New Statesman]]'', Stephen Howe complained that "Spivak is so bewilderingly eclectic, so prone to juxtapose diverse notions without synthesis, that ascribing a coherent position to her on any question is extremely difficult."<ref name=":0" /> [[Judith Butler]], in a response critical of Eagleton's position, cited Adorno's comment on the lesser value of the work of theorists who "recirculate received opinion", and opined that Spivak "gives us the political landscape of culture in its obscurity and proximity", and that Spivak's supposedly "complex" language has resonated with and profoundly changed the thinking of "tens of thousands of activists and scholars", and continues to do so.<ref>{{cite journal |date=1 July 1999 |title=letters |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v21/n13/letters.html |url-status=live |journal=London Review of Books |volume=21 |issue=13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091008113559/http://www.lrb.co.uk/v21/n13/letters.html |archive-date=8 October 2009 |access-date=24 April 2006}}</ref>

=== "Can the Subaltern Speak?" ===
Her essay, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" (1988), established Spivak among the ranks of feminists who consider history, geography, and class when thinking about women. In "Can the Subaltern Speak?", Spivak discusses the lack of an account of the [[Sati (practice)|Sati]] practice, leading her to reflect on whether the [[subaltern (postcolonialism)|subaltern]] can even speak.<ref name="sharp6">{{cite book
  | last = Sharp
  | first = J.
  | title = Geographies of Postcolonialism
  | chapter = Chapter 6, Can the Subaltern Speak?
  | publisher = SAGE Publications
  | year = 2008
 }}</ref>  Spivak writes about the process, the focus on the Eurocentric [[Subject (philosophy)|Subject]] as they disavow the problem of representation; and by invoking the Subject of Europe, these intellectuals constitute the subaltern 'Other of Europe' as anonymous and mute. In all her work, Spivak's main effort has been to try to find ways of accessing the [[subjectivity]] of those who are being investigated. She is hailed{{By whom|date=June 2022}} as a critic who has feminised and globalised the philosophy of [[deconstruction]], considering the position of the [[Subaltern (postcolonialism)|subaltern]] (a word used by [[Antonio Gramsci]] as describing ungeneralisable fringe groups of society who lack access to citizenship).

In the early 1980s, she was also hailed as a co-founder of [[Postcolonialism|postcolonial theory]], which she refused to accept fully. Her ''A Critique of Postcolonial Reason'', published in 1999, explores how major works of European [[metaphysics]] (e.g., [[Kant]], [[Hegel]]) not only tend to exclude the subaltern from their discussions, but actively prevent non-Europeans from occupying positions as fully human subjects.<ref name="critique">{{cite book |last1=Spivak |first1=Gayatri Chakravorty |title=A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present |date=1999 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-17764-2 }}{{page needed|date=October 2023}}{{primary source inline|date=October 2023}}</ref> In this work, Spivak launched the concept of "[[sanctioned ignorance]]" for the "reproducing and foreclosing of colonialist structures". This concept denotes a purposeful silencing through the "dismissing of a particular context as being irrelevant"; an institutionalised and ideological way of presenting the world.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Herbjørnsrud |first1=Dag |title=Beyond decolonizing: global intellectual history and reconstruction of a comparative method |journal=Global Intellectual History |date=3 September 2021 |volume=6 |issue=5 |pages=614–640 |doi=10.1080/23801883.2019.1616310 |s2cid=166543159 }}</ref>

Spivak coined the term "[[strategic essentialism]]", which refers to a sort of temporary [[solidarity]] for the purpose of social action. For example, women's groups have many different agendas that potentially make it difficult for feminists to work together for common causes. "Strategic [[essentialism]]" allows for disparate groups to accept temporarily an "essentialist" position that enables them able to act cohesively and "can be powerfully displacing and disruptive."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Fuss |first1=Diana |title=Reading Like a Feminist |journal=Differences |date=1 July 1989 |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=77–92 |doi=10.1215/10407391-1-2-77 |quote=Spivak's simultaneous critique and endorsement of Subaltern Studies's essentialism suggests that humanism can be activated in the service of the subaltern; in other words, when put into practice by the dispossessed themselves, essentialism can be powerfully displacing and disruptive.}}</ref>

However, while others have built upon the idea of "[[strategic]] essentialism", Spivak has been unhappy with the ways the concept has been taken up and used. In interviews, she has disavowed the term, although she has not completely deserted the [[concept]] itself.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Danius|first1=Sara|last2=Jonsson|first2=Stefan|last3=Spivak|first3=Gayatri Chakravorty|date=1993|title=An Interview with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak|jstor=303357|journal=Boundary 2|volume=20|issue=2|pages=24–50|doi=10.2307/303357}}{{primary source inline|date=October 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://literariness.org/2016/04/09/strategic-essentialism/|title=Strategic Essentialism|date=9 April 2016|work=Literary Theory and Criticism Notes|access-date=9 March 2018|language=en-US|archive-date=9 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180309113415/https://literariness.org/2016/04/09/strategic-essentialism/|url-status=live}}</ref>

In speeches given and published since 2002, Spivak has addressed the issue of terrorism and suicide bombings. With the aim of bringing an end to suicide bombings, she has explored and "tried to imagine what message [such acts] might contain", ruminating that "suicidal resistance is a message inscribed in the body when no other means will get through".<ref name="terror">{{cite journal |last1=Spivak |first1=Gayatri Chakravorty |title=Terror: A Speech After 9-11 |journal=Boundary 2 |date=2004 |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=81–111 |doi=10.1215/01903659-31-2-81 |s2cid=161187420 |id={{Project MUSE|171420}} }}{{primary source inline|date=October 2023}}</ref> One critic has suggested that this sort of stylised language may serve to blur important moral issues relating to terrorism.<ref>{{cite news |last=Alexander |first=Edward |date=10 January 2003 |title=Evil educators defend the indefensible |work=Jerusalem Post |url=https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/jpost/access/276661721.html?dids=276661721:276661721&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Jan+10%2C+2003&author=EDWARD+ALEXANDER&pub=Jerusalem+Post&edition=&startpage=09.A&desc=Evil+educators+defend+the+indefensible |access-date=6 July 2017 |archive-date=5 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121005231731/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/jpost/access/276661721.html?dids=276661721:276661721&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Jan+10,+2003&author=EDWARD+ALEXANDER&pub=Jerusalem+Post&edition=&startpage=09.A&desc=Evil+educators+defend+the+indefensible |url-status=dead }}</ref> However, Spivak stated in the same speech that "single coerced yet willed suicidal 'terror' is in excess of the destruction of dynastic temples and the violation of women, tenacious and powerfully residual. It has not the banality of evil. It is informed by the stupidity of belief taken to extreme."<ref name="terror" />

Apart from Derrida, Spivak has also translated the fiction of the Bengali author, [[Mahasweta Devi]], the poetry of the 18-century Bengali poet [[Ramprasad Sen]], and ''A Season in the Congo'' by [[Aimé Césaire]], a poet, essayist, and statesman from [[Martinique]]. In 1997, she received a prize for translation into English from the [[Sahitya Akademi|Sahitya Akadami]] from the National Academy of Literature in India.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Awards |url=https://www.mla.org/content/download/71150/2133498/NL_49-4_web.pdf |access-date=25 May 2019 |archive-date=25 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190525084302/https://www.mla.org/content/download/71150/2133498/NL_49-4_web.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Academic roles and honours ===
She has been a [[Guggenheim fellow]], has received numerous academic honours including an [[honorary doctorate]] from [[Oberlin College]],<ref>[http://www.oberlin.edu/commencement/ Oberlin College Commencement 2011&nbsp;– Oberlin College] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220717125806/https://www.oberlin.edu/commencement |date=17 July 2022 }}. Oberlin.edu. Retrieved on 21 June 2011.</ref> and has been on the editorial board of academic journals such as ''[[Boundary 2]]''. She was elected to the [[American Philosophical Society]] in 2007.<ref>{{Cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Gayatri+Chakravorty+Spivak&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|access-date=17 May 2021|website=search.amphilsoc.org|archive-date=17 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210517143416/https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Gayatri+Chakravorty+Spivak&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|url-status=live}}</ref> In March of that same year, Columbia University President [[Lee Bollinger]] appointed Spivak University Professor, the institution's highest faculty rank. In a letter to the faculty, he wrote:

{{blockquote|Not only does her world-renowned scholarship—grounded in deconstructivist literary theory—range widely from critiques of post-colonial discourse to feminism, Marxism, and globalization; her lifelong search for fresh insights and understanding has transcended the traditional boundaries of discipline while retaining the fire for new knowledge that is the hallmark of a great intellect.}}

Spivak has served on the advisory board of numerous academic journals, including [https://journals.library.mun.ca/ojs/index.php/JU/about/editorialTeam ''Janus Unbound: Journal of Critical Studies''] published by [[Memorial University of Newfoundland]], [[Differences (journal)|''differences'']], ''[[Signs (journal)|Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society]]'', ''[https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=editorialBoard&journalCode=riij20 Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies]'' published by [[Routledge]], and ''Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies''.<ref>{{Cite news |title=differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies |language=en-US |work=Duke University Press |url=https://www.dukeupress.edu/differences/ |access-date=21 August 2017 |archive-date=9 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190709154612/https://www.dukeupress.edu/differences |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=22 August 2012 |title=Masthead |language=en-US |work=Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society |url=http://signsjournal.org/about-signs/masthead/ |access-date=21 August 2017 |archive-date=8 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190808104816/http://signsjournal.org/about-signs/masthead/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Project MUSE|321|type=journal}}{{verify source|date=October 2023}}</ref> Spivak has received 11 [[Honorary degree|honorary doctorates]] from the [[University of Toronto]], [[University of London]], [[Oberlin College]], [[Rovira i Virgili University|Universitat Rovira Virgili]], [[Rabindra Bharati University]], [[National University of General San Martín|Universidad Nacional de San Martín]], [[University of St Andrews]], [[University of Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis|Université de Vincennes à Saint-Denis]], Presidency University, [[Yale University]], and [[University of Ghana|University of Ghana-Legon]]. In 2012, she became the only Indian recipient of the [[Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy]] in the category of Arts and Philosophy, while in 2021 she was elected a [[Fellow of the British Academy|corresponding fellow of the British Academy]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=23 July 2021 |title=The British Academy elects 84 new Fellows recognising outstanding achievement in the humanities and social sciences |url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/the-british-academy-elects-84-new-fellows-recognising-outstanding-achievement-in-the-humanities-and-social-sciences/ |url-status=live |access-date=22 January 2022 |website=The British Academy |language=en |archive-date=23 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210723020001/https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/the-british-academy-elects-84-new-fellows-recognising-outstanding-achievement-in-the-humanities-and-social-sciences/ }}</ref> In 2025, Spivak received the [[Holberg Prize]].<ref name=":1" />

Spivak has advised many significant post-colonial scholars. Professors [[Jenny Sharpe]] and Mark Sanders are among her former students.<ref name="critique"/>{{rp|xxiii}}<ref>{{cite journal | title=Postcolonial Reading | url=http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/text-only/issue.999/10.1.r_sanders.txt | volume=10 | issue=1 | journal=Postmodern Culture | publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press | year=1999 | access-date=31 March 2021 | archive-date=8 September 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190908170547/http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/text-only/issue.999/10.1.r_sanders.txt | url-status=live }}</ref>

==In popular culture==
''[[Phire Esho, Chaka]]'', a 1961 book of love poems by [[Binoy Majumdar]], was addressed and dedicated to her.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=R. Paranjape |first1=Makarand |title=Why Be Happy When You Could Be in Love? |journal=Southeast Asian Review of English |date=30 December 2017 |volume=54 |issue=2 |pages=1–12 |doi=10.22452/sare.vol54no2.2 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

Her name appears in the lyrics of the [[Le Tigre]] song "[[Hot Topic (song)|Hot Topic]]".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Oler |first=Tammy |date=31 October 2019 |title=57 Champions of Queer Feminism, All Name-Dropped in One Impossibly Catchy Song |url=https://slate.com/culture/2019/10/hot-topic-lyrics-le-tigre-who-is.html |website=Slate Magazine |access-date=8 December 2020 |archive-date=29 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201129211533/https://slate.com/culture/2019/10/hot-topic-lyrics-le-tigre-who-is.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

==Awards==
*Guggenheim Fellowship for Humanities, US & Canada in 1995
*[[Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy]] in 2012
*[[Padma Bhushan]] in 2013
*D.Litt, [[University of St. Andrews]] in 2014
*D. Hum, Yale University in 2015 
*D. Litt, [[University of Ghana]]-Legon in 2015
*D. Honoris Causa, Universidad de Chile in 2016
*Lifetime Scholarly Achievement Award, Modern Language Association of America in 2018
*[[Holberg Prize]] in 2025

==Publications==

===Academic books===
*{{cite book |year=1974 |title=Myself Must I Remake: The Life and Poetry of W.B. Yeats |publisher=Crowell |isbn=9780690001143 }} 
*{{cite book |year=2006 |orig-year=1987 |title=In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781135070816 }} This is a collection of previously published essays.
*{{cite book |year=1988 |title=Selected Subaltern Studies |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780195052893 }} This collection was edited by [[Ranajit Guha]] and Spivak, and includes an introduction by Spivak.
*{{cite book |year=1990 |title=The Post-Colonial Critic&nbsp;– Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781134710850 }} This collection of interviews was edited by Sarah Harasym.
*{{cite book |year=2009 |orig-year=1993 |title=Outside in the Teaching Machine |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781135070571 }}
*{{cite book |year=1995 |title=The Spivak Reader |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781135217129 }}
*{{cite book |last1=Spivak |first1=Gayatri Chakravorty |title=A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present |date=1999 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-17764-2 }}
*{{cite book |year=2003 |title=Death of a Discipline |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=9780231503235 }}
*{{cite book |year=2012 |orig-year=2006 |title=Conversations with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak |publisher=Seagull Books |isbn=9781905422289 }} These conversations were conducted with Swapan Chakravorty, Suzana Milevska, and Tani E. Barlow.
*{{cite book |year=2007 |title= Who Sings the Nation-State?: Language, Politics, Belonging |publisher=Seagull Books |isbn=9781905422579 }} This book was co-authored by Spivak and [[Judith Butler]].
*{{cite book |year=2008 |title=Other Asias |publisher=Wiley |isbn=9781405102070 }}
*{{cite book |year=2010 |title=Nationalism and the Imagination |publisher=Seagull Books |isbn=9780857423184 }}
*{{cite book |year=2012 |title=An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=9780674051836 }}
*{{cite book |year=2012 |title=Harlem |publisher=Seagull Books |isbn=9780857420848 }} This book engages with photographs by [[Alice Attie]].
*{{cite book |year=2014 |title=Readings |publisher=Seagull Books |isbn=9780857422088 }}

===Selected essays===
*"Translator's Preface" in ''Of Grammatology'', Jacques Derrida, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins University Press. ix-lxxxvii. 1976.
*{{cite journal | title=Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism| volume=12 | issue=1 | journal=Critical Inquiry | year=1985 | pages=243–61 | doi=10.1086/448328 | s2cid=143045673 | last1=Spivak | first1=Gayatri Chakravorty }}
*{{cite journal | title=The Rani of Sirmur: An Essay in Reading the Archives| volume=24 | issue=3 | journal=History and Theory | year=1985 | pages=247–72 | doi=10.2307/2505169 | jstor=2505169 | last1=Spivak | first1=Gayatri Chakravorty | s2cid=147694151 }}
*"Speculations on Reading Marx: After Reading Derrida" in ''Post-Structuralism and the Question of History'', eds. Derek Attridge, et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 30–62. 1987.
*"Can the Subaltern Speak?" in ''Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture'', eds. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg. Basingstoke: Macmillan. 271–313. 1988.
*"Woman in Difference: Mahasweta Devi's 'Douloti the Bountiful{{'"}} in ''Nationalisms and Sexuality'', eds. Andrew Parker et al. New York: Routledge. 96–120. 1992.
*{{cite journal | title=Responsibility| volume=21 | issue=3 | journal=Boundary 2 | year=1994 | pages=19–64 | doi=10.2307/303600 | jstor=303600 | last1=Spivak | first1=Gayatri Chakravorty }}
*{{cite journal | title=Ghostwriting| volume=25 | issue=2 | journal=Diacritics | year=1995| pages=65–84 }}
*{{cite journal | title=A Note on the New International| volume=7 | issue=3 | journal=Parallax | year=2001 | pages=12–6 | doi=10.1080/13534640110064084 | s2cid=144501695 | last1=Spivak | first1=Gayatri Chakravorty }}
*{{cite journal | title=Scattered Speculations on the Subaltern and the Popular | volume=8 | issue=4 | journal=Postcolonial Studies | year=2006 | pages=475–86 }}

===Translations===
*{{cite book |last=Derrida |first=Jacques |author-link=Jacques Derrida |year=2016 |orig-year=1967 |title=Of Grammatology |publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press |isbn=9781421419954 |title-link=Of Grammatology}} This translation includes a lengthy critical preface by Spivak.
*{{cite book |last=Devi |first=Mahasweta |author-link=Mahasweta Devi |year=1995 |orig-year=1993 |title=Imaginary Maps |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9780415904636 }} This translation includes a critical introduction of the three stories.
*{{cite book |last=Devi |first=Mahasweta |year=1997 |title=Breast Stories |publisher=Seagull Books |isbn=9788170461401 }} This translation includes a critical introduction of the three stories.
*{{cite book |last1=Mazumdar |first1=Nirode |author-link1=Nirode Mazumdar |last2=Sena |first2=Rāmaprasāda |author-link2=Ramprasad Sen |year=2000 |title=Song for Kali: A Cycle |publisher=Seagull Books |isbn=9788170461555 }} This translation includes an introduction to the story.
*{{cite book |last=Devi |first=Mahasweta |year=2002 |orig-year=1999 |title=Old Women |publisher=Seagull Books |isbn=9788170461449 }} This translation includes a critical introduction of the two stories.
*{{cite book |last=Devi |first=Mahasweta |year=2002 |orig-year=1980 |title=Chotti Munda and His Arrow |publisher=Seagull Books |isbn=9780857426772 }} This translation includes a critical introduction of the novel.
*{{cite book |last=Césaire |first=Aimé |author-link=Aimé Césaire |year=2010 |orig-year=1966 |title=A Season in the Congo |publisher=Seagull Books |isbn=9781905422944 |title-link=Une saison au Congo }} This translation includes a critical introduction of the novel.
*''Red Thread'' (forthcoming)
*''Gramsci and the Schucht Sisters'' (forthcoming, in collaboration with Ursula Apitzsch, et al.)

==See also==
*[[List of deconstructionists]]
*[[Postcolonialism]]
*[[Postcolonial feminism]]
*[[Subaltern Studies]]
*[[Comparative literature]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book | last1 = Chakravorty Spivak | first1 = Gayatri | last2 = Landry | first2 = Donna | last3 = MacLean | first3 = Gerald M. | title = The Spivak Reader: Selected Works | publisher = Routledge | year = 1996 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=gCHcsaSi-sUC | isbn = 9780415910019 }}
* {{cite encyclopedia | last = Spivak | first = Gayatri | others = Ellen Rooney | title = "In a Word": interview | editor-last1 = Nicholson | editor-first1 = Linda | encyclopedia = The Second Wave: a Reader in Feminist Theory | pages = 356–378 | publisher = Routledge | location = New York | year = 1997 | isbn = 9780415917612 }}
* {{cite journal | last = Milevska | first = Suzana | title = Resistance That Cannot be Recognised as Such: Interview with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak | journal = N.paradoxa | volume = 15 | pages = 6–12 | date = January 2005 }}
* {{cite book | last = Iuliano | first = Fiorenzo | title = Altri mondi, altre parole. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak tra decostruzione e impegno militante | publisher = OmbreCorte | year = 2012 | language = it | isbn = 9788897522362 }}
* {{cite encyclopedia |last=Tzanelli |first=Rodanthi |title=Spivak, Gayatri C. (b. 1942) |encyclopedia=The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism |editor-last1=Ness |editor-first1=Immanuel |editor-link1=Immanuel Ness |editor-last2=Cope |editor-first2=Zak |location=Cham |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |year=2021 |pages=2510–2516 |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-29901-9_272 |isbn=978-3-030-29900-2 }}

==External links==
* {{commons category-inline|Gayatri Spivak}}
* [http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AGayatri_Chakravorty_Spivak%2C_Righting_Wrongs.pdf&page=2 "Righting Wrongs" (read full article)]
* [http://socioproctology.blogspot.de/2017/11/spivaks-rani-of-sirmur.html "Spivak's Rani of Sirmur"]
* [https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/commentary/woman-as-theatre "'Woman' as Theatre"] in ''[[Radical Philosophy]]''
*[http://www.lrb.co.uk/v21/n10/eagl01_.html "In the Gaudy Supermarket"]&nbsp;– A critical review of ''A Critique of Post-Colonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present'' by [[Terry Eagleton]] in the [[London Review of Books]], May 1999
*[http://www.lrb.co.uk/v21/n13/letters.html "Exacting Solidarities"]&nbsp;– Letters responding to Eagleton's review of Spivak by [[Judith Butler]] and others
*[https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/postcolonialstudies/2014/06/19/spivak-gayatri-chakravorty/ Glossary of Key Terms in the Work of Spivak]
* [http://www.mlajournals.org/toc/pmla/123/1 MLA Journals: PMLA, Vol. 123, No. 1, January 2008]
* [http://www.mlajournals.org/toc/pmla/125/4 MLA Journals: PMLA, Vol. 125, No. 4, October 2010]
* {{YouTube|YBzCwzvudv0|"An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization"}}; Gayatri Spivak describes her 2012 collection from [[Harvard University Press]]
* [https://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/09/arts/creating-a-stir-wherever-she-goes.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm  "Creating a Stir Wherever she goes"]&nbsp;– ''The New York Times'', February 2002
* [https://www.readingspivak.eu/ Reading Spivak] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200104031557/https://www.readingspivak.eu/ |date=4 January 2020 }}
{{Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy - Thought and Ethics}}
{{PadmaBhushanAwardRecipients 2010–19}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty}}
[[Category:1942 births]]
[[Category:Critical theorists]]
[[Category:Indian feminists]]
[[Category:Bengali writers]]
[[Category:Columbia University faculty]]
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[[Category:Deconstruction]]
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[[Category:Marxist feminists]]
[[Category:Post-structuralists]]
[[Category:University of Iowa alumni]]
[[Category:Multicultural feminism]]
[[Category:Indian women philosophers]]
[[Category:Translators of Jacques Derrida]]
[[Category:Kyoto laureates in Arts and Philosophy]]
[[Category:Postcolonial theorists]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in literature & education]]
[[Category:20th-century American women]]
[[Category:Literary theorists]]
[[Category:Postcolonial literature]]
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[[Category:21st-century Indian women writers]]
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[[Category:20th-century Indian women writers]]
[[Category:21st-century Indian philosophers]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian philosophers]]
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[[Category:Scholars from Kolkata]]
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[[Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society]]
[[Category:21st-century Bengali people]]