Essential delirium, negotiating the texts of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Date
1992
Authors
Franke, Mark Franz Norman
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Abstract
The object of this thesis is to describe and determine a politics in the texts of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Also, the aim of this thesis is to consider the character that this politics takes on both in the writing and reading of her works. It is a preliminary project in which I seek to address the question of how one might read Spivak's vast and disparate array of works as a whole in the general field of critical theory. In this thesis I consider the internal logic of Spivak' s writings and the claims that her texts make of her readers. It is my hope that this study may offer a strong basis upon which one may--with greater attention given to the general politics her works express--then read specific moments in Spivak' s literature back into the respective debates from which they emerge.
The method of investigation which I employ in this thesis is textual analysis. I have taken care to study the majority of Spivak's writings and her published interviews--focusing on specific examples where I can. My interest here is to establish the general mode in which Spivak deals with her various interests. Through this practice I have attempted to weave together a reading of how her multifaceted concerns express a comprehensive tenor and extended project.
In touching upon Spivak's work in the areas of deconstruction, postcolonial critique, feminism, gender, history, Marxism, and time, I consolidate themes in her texts into a discussion of problems in interpretation through to questions of political strategy. I attempt to narrate, in a somewhat continuous form, the critical space and practice which Spivak inherently outlines for herself. On the basis of this positive reading I then explore both the practical and theoretical implications of this critical politics and demonstrate the sort of relations that are privileged and produced in her texts.
Initially, I conclude that a study of Spivak's writings shows that she is not simply a theorist of politics. Her works disclose a charged politics and interventionist presence in themselves. Further, I conclude that there exist a specific discourse of time at the heart of this politics. Her texts remain interventionist to the extent that they ultimately serve to displace the security of location and geographical explanation in both political thought and activity.
My point is to show that Spivak's writings indicate a delirium in the political, in which the essential moment in any given phenomenon is its excess of meaning. I conclude that Spivak's politics involve a disclosure of an "essential delirium," where the only thing that may be located in a given thing--its essence--is that it is unlocatable as such.
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UN SDG 5: Gender Equality