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A Critique of Postcolonial Reason
Toward a History of the Vanishing Present
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A Critique of Postcolonial Reason
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?
This book suits readers interested in postcolonial studies, feminist theory, cultural criticism, philosophy, and global social justice debates. It appeals particularly to academics, intellectuals, and those keen on advanced cultural and political theory.
Are the "culture wars" over? What is their relationship to gender struggle and the dynamics of class? Gayatari Spivak poses these questions and attempts to understand and describe a more responsible role for the postcolonial critic, tracking the figure of the "native informant".
A founder of postcolonial studies surveys the current state of the field and finds much to criticize. This is vintage Spivak--dazzling, often exasperating, but unfailingly powerful. -- Partha Chatterjee, author of The Nation and Its Fragments In these pages Gayatri Spivak performs what often seems either impossible or purely gestural--a critique of transnational globalization which manages to be equally attuned to its cultural and economic effects. This book deserves to be read for its modulated defense of Marxism and feminism alone. It will be welcomed as the clearest statement to date of Spivak's own relationship to the postcolonial theory with which she herself--wrongly, as she forcefully argues here--is so often identified. With a brilliance that is uniquely hers, Spivak issues a challenge which will be very hard to avoid to the limits of theory and of academic institutions alike. -- Jacqueline Rose, author of States of Fantasy Gayatri Spivak tells us that here she charts her progress from colonial discourse studies to transnational cutlural studies. She does so brilliantly. And she does so much more. She constructs this extraordinary progress through an intricate labyrinth, but one with blazing lights in every corner. -- Saskia Sassen, author of Globalization and its Discontents Gayatri Spivak works with remarkable complexity and skill to evoke the local details of emergent agency in an international frame. Her extraordinary attention to the texts she reads and her ability to track the reach of global power make her one of the unparalleled intellectuals of our time. -- Judith Butler, author of The Psychic Life of Power
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Description
Are the "culture wars" over? When did they begin? What is their relationship to gender struggle and the dynamics of class?
In her first full treatment of postcolonial studies, a field that she helped define, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, one of the world's foremost literary theorists, poses these questions from within the postcolonial enclave.
“We cannot merely continue to act out the part of Caliban,” Spivak writes; and her book is an attempt to understand and describe a more responsible role for the postcolonial critic. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason tracks the figure of the "native informant" through various cultural practices—philosophy, history, literature—to suggest that it emerges as the metropolitan hybrid. The book addresses feminists, philosophers, critics, and interventionist intellectuals, as they unite and divide. It ranges from Kant’s analytic of the sublime to child labour in Bangladesh.
Throughout, the notion of a Third World interloper as the pure victim of a colonialist oppressor emerges as sharply suspect: the mud we sling at certain seemingly overbearing ancestors such as Marx and Kant may be the very ground we stand on.
A major critical work, Spivak's book redefines and repositions the postcolonial critic, leading her through transnational cultural studies into considerations of globality.
Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?
Critics praise Spivak's work for its rigorous and brilliant synthesis of postcolonial discourses, imperialism, and European philosophy. Rachel Riedner highlights its scrupulous discussion of imperialism's cultural dimensions, while Yogita Goyal commends the powerful critiques of diverse intellectual positions, noting the book's role as a discerning guardian in postcolonial studies and third world feminism.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780674177642
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 28 June 1999
Country: United States
Imprint: Harvard University Press
Illustration: 1 line illustration
Audience: Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Width: 156.0mm
Height: 235.0mm
Weight: 653g
Pages: 464
About the Author
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is University Professor at Columbia University and a trainer of elementary school teachers in West Bengal.
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