100,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock πŸ‡³πŸ‡Ώ

πŸŽ‰ Meet Toy Hero - our brand-new toy store, built by the team behind Book Hero

Death of a Discipline

Twentieth Anniversary Edition
3.64 goodreads logo

Ratings/reviews counts are updated frequently.

Check link for latest rating.
( 277 ratings, 34 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Death of a Discipline by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak explores the transformation of Comparative Literature as a field of study. It argues for a broadened scope that embraces multicultural perspectives, encouraging a dialogue between the humanities and the non-Western world. Spivak's thought-provoking discourse challenges traditional academic boundaries and advocates for a more inclusive and interdisciplinary approach to literary studies.
Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$3799
AVAILABLE WITH SUPPLIER Ships from our Auckland warehouse within 3-4 weeks

Found a better price? Request a price match

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?

You might enjoy this book if you are intrigued by the evolving boundaries of humanities and wish to explore how globalisation impacts disciplines like comparative literature. It offers thought-provoking insights into cultural studies and challenges traditional academic structures, presenting ideas that appeal to those interested in interdisciplinary and cross-cultural exchange.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak declares the death of comparative literature as we know it and sounds an urgent call for a β€œnew comparative literature,” in which the discipline is reborn.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is among the foremost figures in the study of world literature and its cultural consequences of the past half-century. In this book, originally published in 2003, 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 rebornβ€”one that is not appropriated and determined by the market.

Spivak examines how comparative literature and world literature in translation have fared in the era of globalization and considers how to protect the multiplicity of languages and literatures at the university. She demonstrates why critics interested in social justice should pay close attention to literary form and offers insightful 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.

This anniversary edition features a new preface in which Spivak reflects on the fortunes of comparative literature in the intervening years and its tasks today.

Series: The Wellek Library Lectures

View all
  • Chaos, Territory, Art
    Instead of treating art as a unique creation that requires reason and refined taste to appreciate, Elizabeth Grosz argues that artβ€”especially architecture, music, and paintingβ€”is born from the disruptive forces of sexual selection. She approaches art as a form of erotic expression connecting sensory richness with primal desire, and in doing so, finds that the meaning of art comes from...
    Paperback
    $3399
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Dark Ecology
    Timothy Morton argues that ecological awareness in the present Anthropocene era takes the form of a strange loop or MΓΆbius strip, twisted to have only one side. Deckard travels this oedipal path in Blade Runner (1982) when he learns that he might be the enemy he has been ordered to pursue. Ecological awareness takes this shape because ecological phenomena have...
    Paperback
    $4799
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • The Terrible Children of Modernity
    Peter Sloterdijk is among the most acclaimed and widely read philosophers of the past half-century. Called "Germany's most controversial thinker" by the New Yorker, he has challenged and provoked readers worldwide with extraordinarily ambitious and wide-ranging works of philosophical and cultural critique. In The Terrible Children of Modernity, Sloterdijk offers a magisterial and profound investigation into the vicissitudes of historical...
    Paperback
    $5699
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Death of a Discipline
    Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is among the foremost figures in the study of world literature and its cultural consequences of the past half-century. In this book, originally published in 2003, 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 rebornβ€”one that is not appropriated...
    Paperback
    $3799
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Postprint
    Since Gutenberg's time, every aspect of print has gradually changed. But the advent of computational media has exponentially increased the pace, transforming how books are composed, designed, edited, typeset, distributed, sold, and read. N. Katherine Hayles traces the emergence of what she identifies as the postprint condition, exploring how the interweaving of print and digital technologies has changed not only...
    Paperback
    $4999
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing
    Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing is a poetic, insightful, and ultimately moving exploration of "the strange science of writing." In a magnetic, irresistible narrative, Cixous reflects on the writing process and explores three distinct areas essential for "great" writing: The School of the Dead – the notion that something or someone must die in order for good writing...
    Paperback
    $5199
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • In the Ruins of Neoliberalism
    Across the West, hard-right leaders are surging to power on platforms of ethno-economic nationalism, Christianity, and traditional family values. Is this phenomenon the end of neoliberalism or its monstrous offspring? In the Ruins of Neoliberalism casts the hard-right turn as animated by socioeconomically aggrieved white working- and middle-class populations but contoured by neoliberalism's multipronged assault on democratic values. From its...
    Paperback
    $4799
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Antigone's Claim
    The celebrated author of Gender Trouble here redefines Antigone's legacy, recovering her revolutionary significance and liberating it for a progressive feminism and sexual politics. Butler's new interpretation does nothing less than reconceptualise the incest taboo in relation to kinshipβ€”and open up the concept of kinship to cultural change. Antigone, the renowned insurgent from Sophocles's Oedipus, has long been a feminist...
    Paperback
    $5299
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Postcolonial Melancholia
    In an effort to deny the ongoing effect of colonialism and imperialism on contemporary political life, the death knell for a multicultural society has been sounded from all sides. That's the provocative argument Paul Gilroy makes in this unorthodox defense of the multiculture. Gilroy's searing analyses of race, politics, and culture have always remained attentive to the material conditions of...
    Paperback
    $4799
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780231207232

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 11 July 2023

Country: United States

Imprint: Columbia University Press

Edition: Twentieth Anniversary Edition

Audience: Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Width: 140.0mm

Height: 216.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 160

About the Author

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is University Professor in the Humanities and a founding member of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University. Her many books include A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (1999) and An Aesthetic Education in the Age of Globalization (2012). She is also the translator of Jacques Derrida’s Of Grammatology and several works by Mahasweta Devi.

Also by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

View all
  • The Idea of India
    A lively discussion between two eminent Indian academics that examines what it means to be an Indian. Through a stimulating dialogue, two old friends trace the history of the idea of India through digressions, anecdotes, and observations. Historian Romila Thapar and theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak reflect on the challenges posed by essentialism and exclusion whenever cultures attempt to define and...
    Hardback
    $2299
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • A Critique of Postcolonial Reason
    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. β€œWe cannot merely continue to act out...
    Paperback
    $8099
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks

More from Arts & Culture

View all
  • Dylan's Pick
    Bold Types
    A tribute to 32 truly independent bookshops throughout Aotearoa New Zealand, from north of Auckland down to Dunedin, and coast to coast. Jane Ussher's photographs show every bookstore in its unique nature - including behind the counter, smoko rooms, the mess which tells the hardworking story behind the joy of matching books with customers. Jemma Moreira's careful editing has crafted...
    Hardback
    $5999
    Elsewhere:
    $7000
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Disney Moana: The Official Cookbook
    New Release
    Disney Moana: The Official Cookbook
    Embark on a culinary adventure with Moana of Motunui with Pacific recipes inspired by Moana and Moana 2! After a long day of sailing to see how far you’ll go or keeping the demigod Maui out of trouble with Te Fiti, catch a break with the delicious dishes in Moana: The Official Cookbook! Featuring more than 50 recipes spanning the...
    Hardback
    $4499
    Elsewhere:
    $5299
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • This Angry Pen of Mine
    This Angry Pen of Mine by Layne Staley invites you to dive into the untold creative world of Layne Staley, the legendary voice behind Alice in Chains. This extraordinary collection showcases his handwritten lyrics, deeply personal poetry, stunning original artwork, rare photos, fan tributes, and so much more. Step into the world of Layne Staley like never before. For the...
    Hardback
    $7299
    Elsewhere:
    $8999
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • They Bloom Because of You
    Bestselling author and Instagram sensation Jessica Urlichs returns with a new collection of beautifully observed poems about the ever-evolving journey of motherhood - the hard, the magic and the fleeting. β€˜A raw and honest read that makes you feel seen and understood in a way that will bring you to tears.’ - Hilary Swank β€˜A book to keep close and...
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3600
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Leaves of Grass
    A collectible new Penguin Classics series offers beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets. In 1855, Walt Whitman published his first collection of poetry, Leaves of Grass. The volume received great praise from leading Transcendentalist poet Ralph Waldo Emerson. This encouragement led to what would become a lifelong project, as Whitman expanded and rewrote the volume until his death...
    Hardback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Great Writers and the Cats who Owned Them
    Throughout history, cats and writers have bonded together in a magical combination of comfort, companionship and inspiration. The famous authors featured here range from Samuel Johnson, whose cat Hodge dined on oysters, and Edward Lear, whose charismatic cat Foss was missing half his tail, to Margaret Mitchell, L. M. Montgomery and Dorothy L. Sayers, who rescued her kitten Blitz from...
    Hardback
    $3999
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Beautiful Chaos
    The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller Selected poems from bestselling author and Instagram poet, Jessica Urlichs. 'These words awaken the magic of life by celebrating the ordinary.' - Giovanna Fletcher Motherhood is messy and beautiful, and hard and humbling. We adore our children and sometimes we miss ourselves. Beautiful Chaos is a collection of raw, honest poems about motherhood, capturing everything...
    Paperback
    $2900
    Elsewhere:
    $3500
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • To the Women - The New Collection of Wise Words Every Woman Needs
    THE COMPLETELY UPDATED COLLECTION WITH OVER 70 BRAND NEW POEMS, FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES NO.1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF WILD HOPE AND WORDS TO LIVE BY 'Amazing . . . Donna's words speak to my heart' Davina McCall To the Women is a celebration of the beauty, strength, and joy of being a woman. A love letter to our deep capacity...
    Hardback
    $2999
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Odyssey
    Composed at the rosy-fingered dawn of world literature almost three millennia ago, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty and power; about marriage and family; about travellers, hospitality, and the yearning for home. This fresh, authoritative translation captures the beauty of this ancient poem as well as the drama of its narrative....
    By Homer
    Paperback
    $2999
    Elsewhere:
    $3599
    Backorder
    Ships late August
  • Wreck This Journal: Now in Colour
    The creative journey continues with Wreck This Journal: Now in Colour by Keri Smith, the latest and most vibrant edition of the groundbreaking series that redefined journaling. Celebrating its 10th anniversary, this edition brings the playful destructiveness of the original to life in dazzling full colour, adding a dynamic new dimension to the beloved prompts. Whether you're a seasoned Wreck-er,...
    Paperback
    $2500
    Elsewhere:
    $2800
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Did I Ever Tell You This?
    In this unexpected memoir, written in a creative burst of just a few months in 2022, Sam Neill tells the story of how he became one of the world’s most celebrated actors, who has worked with everyone from Meryl Streep to Isabel Adjani, from Jeff Goldblum to Sean Connery, from Steven Spielberg to Jane Campion. By his own account, his...
    Paperback
    $3799
    Elsewhere:
    $4500
    Backorder
    Ships 1 Week
  • A Thousand Feasts
    THE INSTANT #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER From award-winning writer Nigel Slater, comes a new and exquisitely written collection of notes, memoir, stories and small moments of joy. 'Nigel Slater’s prose is the rarest delicacy of all: exquisite yet effortless, filled with heart, tenderness, yearning and humour' ELIZABETH DAY For years, Nigel Slater has kept notebooks of curiosities and wonderings, penned...
    Paperback
    $2999
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.