File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2001/postcolonial.0111, message 159


Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 15:52:56 +1300
Subject: Re: More on Spivak
From: Danny Butt <db-AT-dannybutt.net>


While conscious of furthering the banter which isn't answering Maci's
question either (well done there Vince!), I just wanted to weigh in with a
note that discussion of Spivak's "style" is a bit redundant when she clearly
employs many different registers in her writing for different contexts.

The more philosophical work which is interesting to English academic
publishers is certainly difficult - but as Sangeeta and others noted, no
more so than many other philosophers. Contrary to WF, I'd suggest that this
*is* technical writing, and there is no reason to expect Spivak's work to be
any more intelligible to the uninitiated than significant new scholarly work
on linguistics, economics, or physics.

I probably understand the work less than most on the list, but I don't see
the point in getting worked up about it. (Why is most of the criticism of
her style from men anyway? Didn't we invent technical language?) I mean, she
does seem to spend more time in political work outside the academic context
than many philosophers, so it's not like she's in some kind of hermetic
world of her own.

Anyone who has read her interviews or talks for non-academic contexts (e.g.
NGOs) knows that she is very capable of incisive political analysis in
non-academic language - more so than many of her critics. If there's ever a
game of "Survivor" which drops academics into political uprisings, I'd have
my money on Spivak over a lot of other bourgeois intellectuals :7.

Danny



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