Teilw. zugl.: Frankfurt (Main), Univ., Diss., 2007

In this essay, I am analyzing hip hop lyrics from Immortal Technique. The main focus is to connect the context of the lyrics to postcolonial theory. The theory paramount to the analysis has been Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s essay Can the Subaltern Speak? My work aims to provide evidence that Immortal Technique’s rap lyrics contextualize colonial, economic and racist structures of power in a manner that has equal merit as intellectual postcolonial theorizing, and we should therefore ask the question of whether or not including street poetry and rap lyrics in the postcolonial discourse can help solve the problem of representation? The essay’s focus is three formulated key concepts centered around power, ideology and the view of women.

The main objective of this essay is to find out and show as to whether the respective pedagogies of Paolo Freire and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak are free from the authoritarian and oppressive tendencies they both expressively seek to oppose. More specifically, the investigation presented in this text is focused on the relation between theory and method in Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Spivak’s “Righting Wrongs – 2002: Accessing Democracy among the Aboriginals.” The analysis of this relation, and these two texts, moreover, is informed by three interconnected research questions, asking (1) how Freire and Spivak prompt us to learn from the learner, (2) if Freire and Spivak manage to circumvent the danger of transference, of imposing the teacher’s agenda on the student, and (3) how the methodological leap (from theory to practice) of Freire and Spivak fit into their respective theorizing in a broader sense. As the inquiries above suggest, this essay pays close attention to the fact that Freire and Spivak both—albeit to different degrees—try to render their theories practicable, while still avoiding undemocratic methods that fail to take into account the voice and the reality of the student. By way of a close reading of some of Freire’s and Spivak’s central pedagogical concepts, a thorough scrutiny of the concrete methodological examples provided by the same scholars, and an analysis of Freire’s dialectical reasoning and Spivak’s Marxist/deconstructionist theorizing, this thesis aims to demonstrate that neither of these two theorists are completely successful in realizing their educational projects. In the case of Freire, this is primarily due to a methodological saving clause that ultimately functions so as to mute students whose voices are not resonant with that of the pedagogue, and in Spivak’s case, the failure finds its explanation mainly in the author’s deconstructionist tendency to resist the practice of offering concrete, overall solutions to complicated problems.

This survey is a theoretical analysis concerning didactics of literature, in which I problematize what Martha C. Nussbaum describes as ”narrative imagination”. By using postcolonial theory, more specific: Gayatri Spivaks essay ”Can the Subaltern Speak?” and her theoretical formula ”a leap into the other’s sea”, I try to answer the following question: Can ”narrative imagination” be understood as a manifistation or concretisation of ”a leap into the other’s sea”? The answer that is given concerning my general question is simply: No. Nussbaums’ reader is far to active, whereas Spivak strongly argues that hearing and/or listening to the subaltern requires a state of self-suspendedness. Nussbaum also shows a great belief in literature as a representation of something truly real, but also as a representation of the Other. Drawing on Spivaks critique of Deleuze and Foucault, I have suggested that representation of this kind should, from a poststructuralistic and Marxist point of view, be seen as a theoretical misstake, for: representation postulates objectiveness or/and transparentness. Finally Nussbaums goals, in terms of cultivating the humanity, has been problematized. Her cosmopolitan and democratic approach is based upon – a form of – universalism and an ambition towards consensus, which – again: from a poststructuralistic perspective – is highly debatable. With this background I have concluded two implications concerning didactics of literature: Firstly, there are plenty of voices not represented by literature, a fact that needs to be considered. Thus, to base a world citizenship, a democracy or an understanding of the Other on works of literature is to restrict ”the world” or ”the Other” to the fictional, literary characters that has been written. Secondly Spivak urges us to reflect on the reader as an interpreter. A total suspension of the self is a naive statement – but she is right to point to the occidental subject as a member and reproducer of postcolonial discourse.

This essay examines the relationship between language, identity, power and visibility in Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2019). This is achieved by applying post-colonial theories regarding double consciousness, and the construction of an Other. Theories put forward by Spivak and Fanon are also discussed in relation to this. By looking at how language is used, both by characters and author, we can see what an immense role language playes in the construction of identity and in the establishing of power.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to analyze some aspects of the historical surroundings in which Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak wrote her famous essay ”Can the Subaltern Speak?”. From a historical perspective, inspired by Quentin Skinner, I examine how Spivak in a context of French theory in U.S. academy criticized Michel Foucault and defended Jacques Derrida. In the first part of my analysis I relate Spivak’s essay to the ”Foucault and Derrida debate” of the sixties and seventies. I argue that many aspects of Derrida’s early critique of Foucault, and many of the themes of that debate in general, was rhetorically repeated by Spivak in ”Can the Subaltern Speak?”. In the second part of my analysis, I discuss how Foucault and Derrida in the context of U.S. academy were, rather than empirical persons, turned into common nouns well incorporated into the academic language. In this context, where Spivak appeared, I analyze how the ”notions” Foucault and Derrida was disputed. I argue that Spivak, during several years before she wrote ”Can the Subaltern Speak?”, had been trying to refute anglophone marxist and postcolonial intellectuals who criticized Derrida. These critics, including Terry Eagleton, Perry Anderson and Edward Said, had been blaming Derrida for being unhistorical, politically evasive and merely textualistic. My argument is that Spivak sought to defend Derrida towards these critics in ”Can the Subaltern Speak?”. In this context, her aim was to emphasize the efficiency of Derrida’s deconstruction as a political tool for marxist, feminist and Third world intellectuals.

In this thesis, I use a close reading of the silent films of Charlie Chaplin to examine a question of listening posed by Jean-Luc Nancy, “Is listening something of which philosophy is capable” (Nancy 2007:1)? Drawing on the work of Nancy, Jacques Derrida and Gayatri Spivak, I consider a claim that philosophy has failed to address the topic of listening because a logocentric tradition claims speech as primary. In response to Derrida’s deconstruction of logocentrism, Nancy complicates the problem of listening by distinguishing between <em>l’e´coute</em> and <em>l’entente</em>. <em>L’e´coute </em>is an attending to and answering the demand of the other and <em>l’entente</em> is an understanding directed inward toward a subject. Nancy could deconstruct an undervalued position of <em>l’e´coute</em>, making listening essential to speech. I argue, Nancy rather asks what kind of listening philosophy is capable of. To examine this question, I focus on the peculiarly dialogical figure derived from Chaplin that communicates meaning without using speech. This discussion illustrates how Chaplin, in the role of a silent figure, listens to himself (<em>il s’e´coute</em>) as other. Chaplin’s listening is Nancean resonance, a movement in which a subject refers back to itself as another subject, in constant motion of spatial and temporal non-presence. For Nancy, listening is a self’s relationship to itself, but without immediate self-presence. Moving in resonance, Chaplin makes the subject as other as he refers back to himself as other. I argue that Chaplin, through silent dialogue with himself by way of the other, makes his listening listened to. Chaplin refused to make his character speak because he believed speech would change the way in which his work would be listened to. In this way, Chaplin makes people laugh by making himself understood (<em>se fait entendre</em>) as he makes himself listened to (<em>se fait e´couter</em>). In answer to Nancy’s question, I conclude philosophy is capable of meeting the demand of listening as both <em>l’entente</em> and <em>l’e´coute</em> when it listens as Chaplin listens.

Student Number : 9803321X - MA Dissertation - School of Literature and Language Studies - Faculty of Humanities / The primary aim of this dissertation is to trace the ways in which Yvonne Vera’s final two novels, Butterfly Burning and The Stone Virgins, provide a discursive space for the enunciation of subaltern histories, which have been silenced in dominant socio-political discourse. I argue that it is through the deployment of ‘poetic language’ that Vera’s prose is able to negotiate the voicing of these suppressed narratives. In exploring these questions, I endeavour to locate Vera’s texts within the theoretical debates in postcolonial scholarship which question the ethical limitations of representing oppressed subjects in the Third World, as articulated by Gayatri Spivak, in particular. Following Spivak’s claim that subalternity is effaced in hegemonic discourse, I focus on the ways in which Vera’s inventive prose works to bring the figure of the subaltern back into signification. In order to elucidate how this dynamic operates in both novels, I employ Julia Kristeva’s psycholinguistic theory of ‘poetic language’. I argue that Kristeva’s understanding of literary practice as a transgressive modality, which is able to unsettle the silencing mechanisms of dominant monologic discourse, critically illuminates the subversive value of Vera’s fictional style for marginalised subaltern narratives.

<p>The following inquiry begins with one simple question: who is the margin? In other words, what is the referent of the term margin? Is it possible for language to capture connotations of an intended and supposed reality beyond its own limits? My supposition is that margin is a valuable concept to critical studies of the hegemonic order and dominant culture in various contexts. It is therefore necessary to expose the term itself to a critical analysis by attempting to trace its position in different discourses. The intention is to illustrate that the term margin is not merely an abstraction, confined within the framework of intricate theoretical rhetoric.</p><p>In a deconstructive analysis of Gender Trouble by Judith Butler and Can the Subaltern Speak? by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, based on the work of Jacques Derrida, I study the significance of the term margin and explore how the use or non-use of concrete examples affects the reception of both the term margin and ultimately the text as a whole.</p><p>The study of these two texts reveals that some of the very same critique raised by Butler and Spivak is itself applicable to the authors’ own theory production. Consequently, the authority of Butler and Spivak is put to the test through deconstructive analysis by disclosing the discrepancies between concrete examples, the authors’ philosophical stance as well as statements and positions found in other examples of their intellectual work.</p>

The following inquiry begins with one simple question: who is the margin? In other words, what is the referent of the term margin? Is it possible for language to capture connotations of an intended and supposed reality beyond its own limits? My supposition is that margin is a valuable concept to critical studies of the hegemonic order and dominant culture in various contexts. It is therefore necessary to expose the term itself to a critical analysis by attempting to trace its position in different discourses. The intention is to illustrate that the term margin is not merely an abstraction, confined within the framework of intricate theoretical rhetoric. In a deconstructive analysis of Gender Trouble by Judith Butler and Can the Subaltern Speak? by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, based on the work of Jacques Derrida, I study the significance of the term margin and explore how the use or non-use of concrete examples affects the reception of both the term margin and ultimately the text as a whole. The study of these two texts reveals that some of the very same critique raised by Butler and Spivak is itself applicable to the authors’ own theory production. Consequently, the authority of Butler and Spivak is put to the test through deconstructive analysis by disclosing the discrepancies between concrete examples, the authors’ philosophical stance as well as statements and positions found in other examples of their intellectual work.