Gayatri Spivak
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is an Indian-American literary theorist and philosopher, best known for her essay "Can the Subaltern Speak?" (1988), a foundational text in postcolonial studies.
Her work examines how Western intellectual frameworks silence marginalized voices, particularly those of women in the Global South.
She translated Derrida's *Of Grammatology* into English and coined the term "strategic essentialism"—temporarily adopting a group identity for political purposes while recognizing its limitations.
- intersectionalityInterconnected identity-based discrimination study
- imperialismExtending dominion over others
- colonialismDomination through foreign settlement
- patriarchyMale-dominated social order
- agencyPower to act
epistemic violence · poststructuralism · worlding · diaspora · strategic · trace · voice · Derrida · hegemony · marginalization · hybridity · resistance · Bengal · feminism · critique · violence · complicity · power
- Feministsfeminist, suffragist, suffragette, Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan
- Indian ThinkersMahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru
- literary criticismliterary theory, literary analysis, close reading, New Criticism, criticism
- Literary Criticsbook reviewer, essayist, scholar, analyst, commentator
- Postcolonial LiteratureChinua Achebe, Salman Rushdie, Rushdie, Lucy, Kincaid
- Indian Critics
Gayatri SpivakRudyard Kipling