Annotation+5+-+Can+the+Subaltern+Speak?


 * EcoEd **
 * Reading Annotation Template **
 * Kelley Fischbach, April 8, 2014 **
 * Annotation 5 – “Can the Subaltern Speak?” **

 **1. ** **Full citation: **

Spivak, G. C. (1988). //Can the Subaltern Speak?//

 **2. ** **Where are the author/s located, what are their backgrounds and what kinds of expertise do they have? **

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is a professor in the department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York. She is an Indian literary theorist and philosopher, born in Calcutta, India in 1942. She studied in India, where she received her undergraduate degree in English, before coming to the U.S. and attending Cornell University for her master’s degree in English and her Ph. D. in comparative literature. Spivak is best known for her theories that challenge the “legacy of colonialism” and focuses on marginalized communities (women, the working class, etc.). ( []  and [] <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">)

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;"> **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">3. ** **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">List ****<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">at least three details or examples from the text that point to something important about culture, education and/or the challenge of environmental sustainability in the United States. **


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">One example that Spivak uses to point to something important about our culture is that we are constantly trying to speak for the subaltern in ways that do not promote these people, but rather condescend.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Spivak also claims that the “first world” is constantly trying to “civilize” developing nations in ways that diminish their own cultural practices and lifestyles.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Spivak also notes that our culture is not set up in a way that allows us to properly discuss the subaltern.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;"> **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">4. ** **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">What three quotes capture the critical import of the text? **


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">“Why should such occlusions be sanctioned in precisely those intellectuals who are our best prophets of heterogeneity and the Other?” (page 67)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">“Whether this observation is correct or not, what interests me is that the protection of woman (today the ‘third-world woman’) becomes a signifier for the establishment of a //good// society which must, at such inaugurative moments, transgress mere legality, or equity of legal policy” (page 94).
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">“The subaltern cannot speak. There is no virtue in global laundry lists with ‘woman’ as a pious item” (page 104).

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;"> **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">5. ** **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">What is the main argument of the text? **

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">The main argument presented in Spivak’s essay is that there is no “good” way for intellectuals to discuss the oppressed. She implies that even though these intellectuals have good intentions, they frequently end up with a sort of condescension for the “Others” that they are trying to promote. Spivak notes that by attempting to let the subaltern speak, they are in fact silencing them. Ultimately, she states that the subaltern “cannot speak” – and implies that the oppressor also cannot speak, without further oppression.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;"> **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">6. ** **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Describe at ****<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">least three ways that the main argument is supported. **


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Spivak supports her argument by discussing the Hindu practice of “sati,” in which women were burned on their husbands’ funeral pyres. In this discussion she notes that, while women were given more free choice and empowerment through the British outlawing of sati, the law really served to exert Britain’s power over India and to undermine Hindu culture.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Her argument is also supported in her discussion of thinkers such as Foucault and Deleuze, pointing out that they are paradoxically silencing the subaltern by trying to speak for them.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Spivak also supports her argument by aligning with several Freudian principles, essentially claiming that we cannot attempt to speak for the subaltern without diminishing their own voices.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;"> **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">7. ** **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">What parts of the argument ****<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">did you find most and least persuasive, and why? **

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Most persuasive was Spivak’s example of the British outlawing the Hindu practice of sati. For me, this really encompassed Spivak’s main argument that, though intentions may be good, there are very few (she argues none at all) ways to speak for the subaltern without condescending and ultimately leaving them voiceless. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">I was not persuaded by Spivak’s criticism of other intellectual writers. I didn’t truly understand her intention here, although her argument seemed to drone on endlessly, too densely to understand.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;"> **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">8. ** **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">What kinds of corrective action are suggested by the text (either overt or implied)? **

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Spivak did not provide any comprehensible correction action measures. She instead focuses on what we should NOT be doing – speaking for the oppressed. I’m not sure what she intends that we do… though she clearly notes that a problem exists.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;"> **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">9. ** **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Explain how the argument and evidence in the text relates to our effort to conceptualize, design and deliver EcoEd? **

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">I suppose that the subaltern, for us in EcoEd, can be seen as the students we are working with, or even the elementary school teachers that we collaborate with. We are constantly trying to find a way to teach our EcoEd content without undermining the knowledge of the elementary school teachers or their students. We also try to avoid “speaking for” our students or telling them directly what is a “right” or “wrong” way of approaching a problem.


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">10. ****<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">What additional information has this text compelled you to seek out? (Describe what you learned in a couple of sentences, providing at least two supporting references). **

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">I found Spivak to be incredibly dense and spent hours just trying to read through it – and then several more trying to understand anything about it, besides the fairly obvious point that Spivak does not believe that the subaltern can speak… As such, I used many internet resources to get a better understanding of her essay to help me in rereading it.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">First, I found this Academia.edu page which summarized Spivak’s work in a much more comprehensive and logical way. From this source, I got a better understanding of what subaltern even means and was then able to go back and decipher more of Spivak. This summary made the text seem so simple that I was again incredibly depressed when I went back to make sense of it all – and failed. ( <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">[] <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">) <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Consequently, I wanted to find reviews from a younger, less experienced audience that would use terminology that I could understand. This “Cultural Studies Now” blog, and its comments, was incredibly helpful to me, since it put Spivak’s argument into perspective. I learned more about what she was criticizing Marx, Deleuze, Derrida, etc. for, and better understood Spivak’s main argument. ( <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">[] <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">)