Nationalism and the Imagination

by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak has distinguished herself as one of the foremost scholars of contemporary literary and postcolonial theory and feminist thought. Known for her translation of Derrida’s On Grammatology and her groundbreaking essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” Spivak has often focused on subaltern, marginalized women and the role of essentialism in feminist thought to unite women from divergent cultural backgrounds.  In Nationalism and the Imagination, Spivak expands upon her previous postcolonial scholarship, employing a cultural lens to examine the rhetorical underpinnings of the idea of the nation-state.

            In this gripping and intellectually rigorous work, Spivak specifically analyzes the creation of Indian sovereignty in 1947 and the tone of Indian nationalism, bound up with class and religion, that arose in its wake. Spivak was five years old when independence was declared, and she vividly writes: “These are my earliest memories: Famine and blood on the streets.” As well, she recollects the songs and folklore stories that were prevalent at the time in order to examine the role of the mother tongue and the relationship between language and feelings of national identity. She concludes that nationalism colludes with the private sphere of the imagination in order to command the public sphere.

            Originally given as an address at the University of Sofia in Bulgaria, Nationalism and the Imagination provides powerful insight into the historical narrative of India as well as compelling ideas that speak to nationalist concerns around the world. Also included in this book is the discussion with Spivak that followed the speech, making this an essential and informative work for scholars of post-colonialism.

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Politics, Sociology, Theory

92 pages, Hardcover

First published January 20, 2009

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

[Akankshya · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant essay on nationalism & its fictive nature. I am inspired by the possibility of seeing equivalence through comparative literature.

I take away a desire to expand my imagination in other languages so I may one day inhabit more than a single lingual memory.

[Samaa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly I expected more from this book. It was really difficult to understand, even though I am interested in the topic and have read a lot of similar pieces. This seemed to be unnecessarily verbose and technical/jargon-ny. I didn't get much out of it unfortunately.

[Maira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything that Spivak writes is a master piece in itself. this was nothing different. BRAVO!

[Joyriddha ◉‿◉ Biblioverse · Rating 3 out of 5]

If Eurasia would have been a knowledge paradigm,Spivak would surely be one of the chief architects. But here,she critiques the 'sociology of Knowledge' in course of evaluating the idea of 'nationalism' corresponding to the 'nation-state' system which the rest of the world essentially borrowed from Europe. The pollar opposite experiences in teaching the elite students in one of the most renowned universities(Columbia University)in the world in the Big Apple and working for the Adivasis in the tribal areas of West Bengal have helped her understand on practical terms how the subaltern world operates. She shifts from the normative rather western narrative of 'Public Sphere' where the Public space has been given predominant importance over the private as she explains how the 'Private' shapes or rather constructs the 'Public' when it comes to the nature of 'Cultural Nationalism' in the 'Global South'/India. Yes,she adeptly differentiates between 'Cultural Nationalism' and 'Civic Nationalism' and explains why the civic institutions should be kept out of the reach of the prior. Here the onus is upon the persons associated with Arts and Humanities (though she emphatically asserts the importance of thinkers from other disciplines for the same) to employ 'literary imagination' to de-transcendentalize the nation:to free it from the 'her' symblism tracing its physical origin consciously,freeing it from the manipulative spell of the 'self-selected moral entrepreneurs'(read Political leaders)who uses it as a pawn to meet their vicious ends.Quite amazingly she explores how the 'woman' figure is used to appeal to the sentiments('Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori':it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country;'Motherland'),rather than substance and thereby appropriating the 'female' to trade convenience in the name convention. She argues for the modification of the 'tertiary education of universities' where a coherent 'comparativist' module should to be included if the cultural 'equivalence' is to be achieved through 'creolization of native literatures' and languages.

[Maryam]

There are brilliant points made here but overall I didn't get a coherent reading experience and some concepts remain vague. I'll give it another read sometime later when I'm more familiar with history and social structures.

[Siva Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not ready for this book...Not yet.

[Echo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The format of this stood out as the best thing about it.

[Eden I. · Rating 4 out of 5]

might need to go over reproductive heteronormativity again

[Ⰰⱃⰿⰰⱀⰴ Ⱆⰾⰴⰵⱃⰻⰽⱁ Ⱅⰵⱄⰾⰰ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Izdanje; Fraktura, ZGB- 2011.
Ovaj kratkosvrt započet ću svojim premisama i dvojbama oko ozvjezdičenja teorijskih knjiga. Dosad sam zvjezdičio uglavnom po kriteriju da li bih se složio sa sadržajem teorijske knjige ili ne. Odlučio sam da s ovom knjigom kreće nova saga kriterija ozvjezdičenja teorijskih knjiga, ozvjezdičenjem ocijenjujem formu i stil teorijske knjige a ne njen sadržaj. Eto to bi bila moja uvodna napomena mojem milijunskom čitateljstvu.
U izdanju Frakture osim eseja "Nacionalizam i imaginacija" javljaju se također i sljedeći eseji; "Mogu li podčinjeni govoriti?" te "Novo promišljanje komparativizma". Knjgu prevedoše, s engleskog, Snježana Hasnaš i Damir Biličić.
Knjiga započinje i završava s Biljanom Kašić (inače mojom profesoricom na izbornom-Postkolonijalne teorije, he!) jer je ona autorica uvodnih "Napomena uz čitanje" te pogovora.
Jezik kojeg Spivakica koristi je uistinu kreativan te aktualizirajući. Njezin jezik je živ, okretan i originalan. Spivak sama osmišljava neologizme; "ženaprostor", "pojezičenje", "pojedinka", "trećesvjetizam", "urazlikovljenje". Svi pojmovi su u uskoj vezi s novonastalom teorijskom disciplinom, postkolonijalizmom.
Biljana Kašić sjajno problematizira u uvodnim "Napomene uz čitanje" problem prijevoda Spivakina leksika. Primjerice riječ "subaltern" ne posjeduje svoju ilirsku inačicu već su prevoditelji preveli navedenu riječ u vezi njezina konteksta- time su jedinstvenu englesku riječ preveli svaki put na drugačiji način. "Subaltern" može značiti koješta; podređenost, poniženost, podčinjenost, bezglasnost, povijesna ušutkanost, nevidljivost, bezdomnost... U svakom slučaju kužite spiku oko subalternosti. Sama Biljana Kašić je razigrana u jezičnom tkanju; "...valjalo je pojam vratiti tekstu, umjestiti ga u smisao...".
Grafički je tekst zanimljiv, zagradama se multiplicira poruka/značenje pojedinih riječi; "sup(r)o(t)stavljanja", "predstav(a)-ljanje" i tome slično. Navedeni postupak je baš kul.
Nakon eseja "Nacionalizam i imaginacija" dolazi prijepis rasprave koja se održala nakon što je Spivakica u Bugarskoj usmeno izložila svoj esej.
Eto još jedan kratkosvrt čika Vave završava, pa-pa svima!

[Sumallya Mukhopadhyay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nationalism and the Imagination, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Spivak is difficult to read and even more difficult to understand. In this lecture titled Nationalism and the Imagination, which was delivered at the University of Sofia, Bulgaria, Spivak, to relocate and analyse the definition of nationalism, revisits the Bengal Famine, Partition and Independence. She draws from her personal memory to substantiate how nationalism is defined and then naturalised in our memory through our ‘underived Private’. This underived private is our mother tongue or the piece of land that we call home. These private spaces nurture the concept of nationalism. And all of this is due to imagination. It is imagination that associates us with these ‘underived private’. This is why Spivak claims nationalism to be ‘reproductive heteronormativity’. This normative of nationalism, sustained by imagination, is reproduced time and again in our public sphere. In fact, Spivak evinces that nationalism colludes with the private sphere of our imagination to command the public sphere.
To resist this, Spivak opines that it is imperative to translate our subject-position which can be achieved by reading diverse works in translation. When we see our mother-tongue is being translated and we read texts which are written in someone else’s mother-tongue, we are resisting the importance given to our ‘underived private’. Comparative study of texts is instrumental to get acquainted with and later, acclimatize with language.