Death of a Discipline

by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

For almost three decades, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak has been ignoring the standardized "rules" of the academy and trespassing across disciplinary boundaries. Today she remains one of the foremost figures in the study of world literature and its cultural consequences. In this new book she declares the death of comparative literature as we know it and sounds an urgent call for a "new comparative literature," in which the discipline is given new life―one that is not appropriated and determined by the market.

In the era of globalization, when mammoth projects of world literature in translation are being undertaken in the United States, how can we protect the multiplicity of languages and literatures at the university? Spivak demonstrates how critics interested in social justice should pay close attention to literary form and offers new interpretations of classics such as Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own . Through close readings of texts not only in English, French, and German but also in Arabic and Bengali, Spivak practices what she preaches.

Acclaim for Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and her

"[Spivak] pioneered the study in literary theory of non-Western women."―Edward W. Said

"She has probably done more long-term political good, in pioneering feminist and post-colonial studies within global academia, than almost any of her theoretical colleagues." ―Terry Eagleton

"A celebrity in academia... create[s] a stir wherever she goes." ― The New York Times

Genres: Theory, Literary Criticism, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Cultural Studies, Post Colonial, Politics

136 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is University Professor at Columbia University. She is known for her English translation of Jacques Derrida's seminal work Of Grammatology, and her own philosophical writings on the postcolonial condition that introduced the term "subaltern" into the philosophical lexicon.

Reviews

[AYAH · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh Dear! I still believe now what I did over a year ago "life is too short for this"! Unless you're a humanities major, I don't see why bother with Spivak at all! In this particular book she makes some interesting points: identity politics is neither smart nor good (that sentence was why I gave the second star, btw!); the concept of planetarity is a nice spin on Edward Said's Humanism or what he calls Hospitality; she points out the potential lack of rigour in cultural studies; and stress the necessity of direct knowledge of languages in an authentic comparative literature.. All great stuff & that's why I'm disappointed in her writing style & just can't bring myself to get over it :( these are serious issues that deserve an articulate expression..

"All around us is the clamour for the rational destruction of the figure, the demand for not clarity but immediate comprehensibility by the ideological average."

Guess I'm an ideological average, then! I have no plans to become anything else & Ms Spivak may enjoy the view from her high horse!

I highly recommend "Reading the Referent: Post-colonialism and the Writing of Modernity" by Simon Gikandi..

[Talrubei · Rating 1 out of 5]

A few points covered in a pile of jargon.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Highly theoretical collection on the state of comparative literature -- which needs, in Spivak's view, a revival. Spivak does not call for the destruction of the field of comp lit, but a remodeling, as many comparatists have done before and since. She wants an intersection of disciplines, particularly that of comparative literature and area studies, a field dedicated to the total study (cultural, linguistic, economic, etc) of locations. In order to do this, Spivak wants the depoliticization of comparative literature from its intrinsic cold war politics and the dominant Euro-US cultural figure it centers around and calls for an acknowledgment that "whatever our view of what we [comparatists] do, we are moved by the forces of the people moving around the world." With this acknowledgement comes the demand for a reworking of the way comparatists even study language -- that is, as a part of cultural study rather than active cultural media, the latter being more conducive to the "collectiveness" of the new field of comparative literature Spivak calls for. She takes literature itself as a form of pedagogy, and her essays are replete with examples of how to read under this new paradigm of comparative literature, as the dominant subject as the other; the reader as other; the reader as being read. Her final essays calls for a planetary perspective on literature.

I really enjoyed Spivak's essays on comparative literature, but do acknowledge that at times things could get a little murky, particularly with her second essay on theopoiesis and Derrida. But while she raises questions about the state of the discipline, she also offers answers, and I appreciated her call to destabilize the very notion of the "nation" within comparative and world literature, for "comparative literature remains imprisoned within the borders it will not cross." I liked her call for academic rigor to not only the notion of "nation" but the in-between processes as well -- that of diaspora and labor movements.

Finally, I liked her quote within a quote in her first essay -- "One thinks with horror of how small the number is of those who are ready even to misunderstand something like this."

[Mikayla Mcglaven · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was mostly unreadable. I am perpetually disappointed that someone with such radical politics writes in the most inaccessible way possible, using dense and prolix jargon, incomprehensibly long sentence structure, and a roundabout sentence construction that is usually impossible to parse. I got the impression that there was some kind of colonial connotation to the idea of area studies but that's about it. Does that constitute a spoiler? I wish someone would spoil it for me so I could understand what I just read.

[Sara Baalbaki · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure what to think after reading this book. It's confusing, but Spivak usually writes in a more abstruse manner, so this book was okay. The main thing I take away from this book is that she wants Ethic and Area Studies to be more inclusive of other literatures, and think of them in less binary (East vs West) terms.

[Mitch · Rating 2 out of 5]

Death of my sanity.

[Jared Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

The globe is on our computers. No one lives there.

[ellen grace · Rating 2 out of 5]

*chris fleming voice* yeah this could use some work

[Miss · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must admit that I didn't understand much of what Spivak is saying until it finally came to me: she isn't saying much at all. Her stream-of-consciousness-style isn't doing her any favours, the real important points disappear in a pile of opaque explainations whose content is close to nothingness. The most important point she makes, and this why I like parts of this book, is that literature needs to be seen from a planetary perspective. Forget about the old imperalist world literature, forget about the capitalist global literature. We need an idea that includes everyone and deconstructs the old concept. I hope that someone will somehow build a whole theory on this idea because it could solve one of the biggest issues around the concept of world literature: its Western perspective.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cogent clarion call for reconceptualizing comparative literature as field/discipline. Had the feeling this edition not well-edited. Does chapter 2 intentionally trail off mid-thought, mid-paragraph, mid-sentence?

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chapter 1 Crossing borders

C.f. the notion of abolishing the idea of regionalism, that is, the study of literature based on the geographical locations of their origins (in fact, it sounds more like the nationality of the author).

p.13 a little play on the word “translation” by which she does not mean the translation of a literary work from a language to another but rather the transcoding of bodies into ethical semiosis, what she calls the incessant shuttle of life. I think this reverberates to her title “death” of Comp Lit that does not really mean its death but the newly born version of it.

It seems to me that Spivak slides a bit towards the idea that there is the existence of the untranslatable.

Chapter 2 Collectivity

Spivak is skeptical on Moretti’s project of a new approach to World Literature while also dismissing WST as she thinks that the theory equates the economy and the culture. The fear is that the US cultural hegemony could possibly grow into a faux World Lit or Comp Lit that is essentially monolingual.

She talks about feminism that is highly exclusive. Feminism does not suppose to make women like men. It should acknowledge the sexual difference and acts upon it. What is she alluding to is probably the US feminists who fail to extend the campaign out of their own country.

Chapter 3 Planetarity

Spivak explains what she does is a form of remodelling of the current reference of the globe as the world we live in: rather than the globe, as in globalisation, a fictive world that only monetary transactions exist, she prefers the use of the planet. The shift brings back the existence of nature that has been subconsciously ignored by humanity for long. I guess this makes another way of seeing the world, a change of perspective, a rise of environmentalism.

Therefore, this is a defiance to the current capitalist world where everything turns towards quantification. Interestingly, even though it is possible to turn the tide by giving a place to the collectivisation of the planet, the problem than becomes the realisation of its alterity, the so-called determining experience: if the planet is the alterity of the globe, and new collectivities are the alterity of the planet, then in the translation of these bodies into literature, how many are left to form a recognisable hegemony?

[JT · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spivak argues that a new comparative literature, her 'Area Studies,' would insist on the radical incommensurability of different cultures' received ideas and concepts and stare directly into the observer-expectancy effect. In the age of a 'planetary' culture that has long been defined more by the continuous movement of global economic history than by the old fantasy of discrete nation-states and national literatures, Spivak argues that the most appropriate tack for comparative literature would be a kind of comparative inadequacy.

Death of a Discipline is just as dense and scattered in its style as in its sense, which is meant to be instructive I suppose. The book enlists Woolf, Coetzee, Conrad and several novels from outside the Western canon/market to demonstrate the persistent cognitive biases of colonialist thought. Her occasional jabs at the established tropes of American cultural studies are especially damning when they crop up - e.g. "[...] tied to plot summary masquerading as analysis of representation, and character analysis by a precritical model of motivation or an unearned psychoanalytic vocabulary[.]"

Definitely worth the time and effort.

[Hossein · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've never been a fan of postcolonial theory and comparative literature and I'm still not, although I admit the need for such theories. The mistake that many make about Death of a Discipline, is to reduce it to study of comparative literature, but look at what is behind the call for the new postcolonialist and new comparative literature. Spivak says a no to the nationalism, considers the planetarity of the identity and attacks harshly to the fixed definition of women advocated by institutions. So you will find more than comparative literature alone. However, sometimes the book gets clear to understand and sometimes very hard to follow, especially in chapter 2 when she talks about collectivity. Her thoughts about crossing borders seem to be impossible but while admitting that she explains how imagining the possibility of an impossible is important. Spivak, as you know, is a diehard fan of Derrida, so get ready for lots of Derridean challenging style of writing.deep in meaning, but hard to follow by the first reading.

[Joanna Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

As expected from Spivak, a radical reimagining of what Comparative Literature might be, utilizing the language of spirituality and revolutionary idealism; as always, the non-pedantic and sometimes roundabout language also serves as a teaching point. If you are looking for "points" and "arguments", you are already starting off from a different perspective, one entrenched in a specific approach to academic thinking. Instead, think of this as creative writing and a manifesto that reimagines a discipline.

[Aidan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ngl, this was a lil incomprehensible. Needed some secondary theory to help me through some it, because comp. Lit. Is not my most comfortable area, with that being said, a lil lost in the robust language is a wonderful theory of planetarity and the better way to understand the world through literature. I would not recommend this to people tho!

[Diego Arango]

"Insofar as Comparative Literature remains part of the Euro–U.S. cultural dominant, it shares another sort of fear, the fear of undecidability in the subject of humanism. Who crawls into the place of the "human" of "humanism" at the end of the day, even in the name of diversity?"

[Rochelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

i'm not going to pretend that i understood this text but what i could glean from it was fascinating.

[Jafreen Alamgir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved to see a different perspective of an intellectual's struggle. ❤ Words alone cannot describe its excellency.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A text is not a line of words releasing a single 'theological' meaning (the message of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash." — Roland Barthes

ভূমিকা: শৃঙ্খলার মৃত্যুর সীমানায়: গায়ত্রী চক্রবর্তী স্পিভাকের Death of a Discipline (২০০৩) মূলত তুলনামূলক সাহিত্যের সংকট ও ভবিষ্যৎ নিয়ে এক ধরনের একাডেমিক আত্মবিশ্লেষণ। বিশ্বায়নের যুগে সাহিত্যের শৃঙ্খলা কীভাবে নিজেকে বদলাবে বা বদলানো উচিত, তা স্পিভাকের আলোচনার কেন্দ্রে রয়েছে।

তিনি ইউরোপীয় ও উত্তর-আমেরিকান কেন্দ্রিক তুলনামূলক সাহিত্যের জগতে নতুন দৃষ্টিভঙ্গির প্রয়োজনীয়তার কথা বলেন, যেখানে দক্ষিণ গোলার্ধের ভাষা, সাহিত্য ও সংস্কৃতির প্রতি সংবেদনশীল দৃষ্টিভঙ্গি গড়ে ওঠে।

তুলনামূলক সাহিত্য ও ইউরোপকেন্দ্রিকতা:

"There is no such thing as a perfect translation, only the attempt to bring meaning from one world to another." — Jacques Derrida

স্পিভাকের মতে, তুলনামূলক সাহিত্য এখনও ইউরোপীয় ভাবনার ছায়ায় আবদ্ধ। তিনি এডওয়ার্ড সাঈদের Orientalism-এর প্রসঙ্গ টেনে দেখান, কিভাবে প্রাচ্য নিয়ে পাশ্চাত্যের দৃষ্টিভঙ্গি একতরফা থেকে যায়। স্পিভাক দাবি করেন, তুলনামূলক সাহিত্যকে শুধুমাত্র ইউরোপীয় ভাষাসমূহের মধ্যে সীমাবদ্ধ না রেখে দক্ষিণ এশীয়, আফ্রিকান ও লাতিন আমেরিকান সাহিত্যের সঙ্গে সংযোগ স্থাপন করতে হবে।

এর জন্য তিনি ভাষা শিক্ষার গুরুত্ব তুলে ধরেন, বিশেষ করে গ্লোবাল সাউথের স্থানীয় ভাষার পাঠ অপরিহার্য বলে মনে করেন।

বহুভাষিকতা ও অনুবাদের রাজনীতি:

"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world." — Ludwig Wittgenstein

স্পিভাক তুলনামূলক সাহিত্যের প্রসারে বহুভাষিক চর্চার ওপর জোর দেন।

পাশ্চাত্যের বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়গুলোতে আধুনিক তুলনামূলক সাহিত্য সাধারণত ইউরোপীয় ভাষার মধ্যেই আবর্তিত হয়, কিন্তু যদি আমরা সত্যিকার অর্থে বহুজাতিক ও আন্তসংস্কৃতিক তুলনামূলক সাহিত্য গড়ে তুলতে চাই, তবে আমাদের স্থানীয় ভাষাগুলোর অধ্যয়ন জরুরি।

স্পিভাক অনুবাদকে কেবল ভাষান্তর হিসেবে দেখেন না; বরং এটি একটি রাজনৈতিক কর্মকাণ্ড, যেখানে ক্ষমতার কাঠামো কাজ করে।

বিকল্প জ্ঞান ও মানবিক বিদ্যার ভবিষ্যৎ"

"Knowledge is not made for understanding; it is made for cutting." — Michel Foucault

স্পিভাক দেখান, কীভাবে বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়গুলোতে মানবিক বিদ্যার অবস্থান ক্রমশ সংকুচিত হচ্ছে এবং কর্পোরেট ও প্রযুক্তিনির্ভর জ্ঞান-ব্যবস্থা তুলনামূলক সাহিত্য ও ভাষা অধ্যয়নের গুরুত্বকে অবহেলা করছে।

তার মতে, তুলনামূলক সাহিত্যের শৃঙ্খলা যদি তার সংকীর্ণ ইউরোপীয় ধারা থেকে বেরিয়ে এসে দক্ষিণ গোলার্ধের দর্শন ও চিন্তাধারাকে অন্তর্ভুক্ত করে, তবে এক নতুন ধরণের মানবিক বিদ্যার পুনরুজ্জীবন ঘটতে পারে।

উপসংহার: পুনর্জন্মের সম্ভাবনা:

"We must learn to inhabit the space between disciplines." — Homi K. Bhabha

স্পিভাকের Death of a Discipline শৃঙ্খলার ‘মৃত্যু’ ঘোষণা করলেও প্রকৃতপক্ষে এটি নতুন এক তুলনামূলক সাহিত্যের সম্ভাবনা নিয়ে আলোচনা করে।

তিনি দেখান, একাডেমিক শৃঙ্খলাগুলো কখনও স্থির থাকে না; বরং সময়ের সঙ্গে তারা পরিবর্তিত হয়। তুলনামূলক সাহিত্যও তার ইউরোপকেন্দ্রিক ধারা থেকে বেরিয়ে এসে বহুভাষিক ও আন্তসাংস্কৃতিক দৃষ্টিভঙ্গি গ্রহণ করলে তা নতুনভাবে পুনর্জীবিত হতে পারে।

স্পিভাকের এ বই শুধুমাত্র একাডেমিক ডিসকোর্সের অংশ নয়, বরং এটি ভাষা, সংস্কৃতি ও জ্ঞানের রাজনীতি সম্পর্কে গভীরভাবে ভাবতে শেখায়। তার তাত্ত্বিক অবস্থান সাহিত্যের নতুন দিগন্ত উন্মোচনে অত্যন্ত গুরুত্বপূর্ণ।

[Martin Hare Michno · Rating 2 out of 5]

With the risk of seeming crude, the insights offered by Spivak are simply not insightful enough to warrant her obnoxiously difficult writing. It is simply not worth the hassle. We are not short of radical, emancipatory, anti-colonial author which make an effort to explain themselves. Spivak is simply not one of them. Whatever we might think of how he too-easily dismisses "postmodernism", Terry Eagleton was simply right when he wrote of Spivak:

"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".

I can agree with a new Comparative Literature which learns from Area Studies, I can see the fruitfulness of "Planetarity" as a concept. But I don't see the point, despite Judith Butler, in making it a hassle to read. The content, the insights of the book, do not require such a complex form.

[Sohan Sharif · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an wonderful book of Gayatri Spivak. Some People make an argument to read first capter of the book. but She make an ameging argument on 3rd Chapter. That's called Planetariry. I wasn’t understand this book while being a bachelor student of Comparative literature and culture. That's time, I had interested to read Upanishad and Bisshwashahittya (Comparative literature) by Rabindranath Tagore. Gayatri Spivak Discussed this matter in an excellent way, but she take it on loan form Tagore. I really enjoyed my jeourny on reading the book. If you have any interest to read the book, I suggest you go ahead.
hopefully, You find me to thank or scold me. Her english writing is Khaytarnag [indian Word] but Her thought is mind blowing. Her thought can be your guide when you read this complex english.

[DW]

A reading presumes a position or coordinate, a mapped and therefore spoken for mechanism of globalized structures. Spivak warns us of this and calls for planetarity.

Not the book I expected but a great one to read in 2024.

[Nathaniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 an da-rìribh, saoileam, ach bidh agam ri smaoineachadh barrachd mu dheidhinn an leabhair seo nuair a thar-sgrìobhas mi na h-às-earrannan a chomharraich mi fhad ’s a bha mi a’ leughadh.

[Herick Martins]

;p

[Frank Keizer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Often marred by jargon, but worth it for this quote alone: 'The global is on our computer screens. Nobody lives there.'

[Matthew Molinaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

reading spivak at work lol

[Ruo Jia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some so helpful, some?????

[sofi ilie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Important concepts. Poor methodology.

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a manifesto of sorts suggesting a way forward for the humanities. Spivak argues these disciplines are becoming increasingly removed from the subjects/text they purport to study. She suggests a revolutionary hybridization, which really felt to me more like pointing the way backwards rather than forwards. As a political statement I found it somewhat lacking, but the problems that Spivak identifies are real enough. If academic disciplines are to remain relevant they must engage with reality, in all its complexity, and not merely toy with rhetoric.

[Susanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Spivak. But she's impossible (for me) to understand the first time through. I only read her last chapter in this book, "Planetarity," but it has been very helpful for my work this semester. Here's how I approach reading Spivak: read it once, underlining what seems important but not backtracking if I don't understand. Then I go through it again and take notes in a word document. And then it all comes together.

Really Spivak is making the most interesting ethical arguments out there right now in globalization theory and postcolonial studies.