I had to read Spivak twice - and I only figured things out the second time around by looking up tons of concepts that she mentions. Not having the notes for this reading has been a real hurdle. To make my presentation concise enough to take up only 5-10 minutes, I'm going to retrace her idea of complicity between the subject and object of investigation. How I'm going to put this in summarizing terms, I have no idea. But for my blog I'll talk about something else. . .
What I think is very interesting about her study is that she brings to light the complicity of the male subaltern and the historian in placing the female in the margins of civil society. She says they ignore the discontinuity of the woman as the instrument of the continuity of community or history; yet she goes on to say that "the making-visible of the figure of a woman is perhaps not a task that the group should fairly be asked to perform." She says this is the job for a feminist reader, herself. Following this, then, why would she state that "it should be surprising to encounter such indifference to the subjectivity, not to mention the indispensable presence, of the woman as crucial instrument"? What "should be" surprising about the omission of a figure that they should not be fairly asked to make visible?
I would say: "Spivak I like your ideas but I don't like your writing style"
ReplyDeleteYou talk about a very interesting point there, I have to say I hadn't noticed this contradiction. I hope you'll talk more about it in class.