From: "Mohammed BEN JELLOUN" <mohammed.benjelloun-AT-mail.bip.net>
Subject: Re: for margaret re: spivak
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 22:08:24 +0100


Hi Sangeeta

Coming myself from other horizons--sociology, political science, international relations--, I must say that Spivak's as well as Bhabha's intellectual contributions are still unknown within those fields. This is of course not to prejudice Spivak. As for Bhabha's political ideas, I think they are well expressed and in a much easier jargon in Waldron, Jeremy (1992), 'Minority Cultures and the Cosmoplitan alternative', _University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform_, 25/3: 751-93. I've tried myself to examine the substance of his ideas in a shorter essay (I tried unseccessfully to insert it as an attached document, but I could possibly send it to you offlist ). My hopes are that Spivak has more to offer other fields than poco studies. I'll be happy to count among the first initiated.

Best,
Mohammed

 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "sr42" <Sangeeta_RAY-AT-umail.umd.edu>
To: <postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2001 8:59 PM
Subject: for margaret re: spivak


> Dear Margaret: i wonder whether Spivak has made it in some ways--she did
> finally make it to an ivy league in terms of teaching--Columbia-- but in some
> ways she is very much not part of a certain frat or sororal group. Her best
> and perhaps most receptive audience is a certian kind of transnationalist
> feminist but otherwise she is quite outside the circle--be it
> deconstruction, marxism, and to some extent even poco studies.
> 
> It is always amazing that people bitch and bitch about her style but there
> isn't any of this disdain when it comes to Bhabha.
> 
> On an interesting not Aijaz Ahmad had in his book labelled Bhabha as the
> avatar of obfuscation and many critics had a major objection to that as well
> as his criticism of Edward Said. If he had indulged in Spivak bashing I
> wonder if there would have been a special issue of a journal
> devoted to making sure that his objections were addressed and redressed.
> 
> Bhabha is very much part of a certain intellectual crowd
> 
> I think both their work os relevant for different reasons and my particular
> penchant for Spivak lies in her constant reminder of the real politik
> something I find lacking in Bhabha. What i also like about Spivak's
> arguments and methodology is the refusal to produce static categories for
> consumption--unlike say the manner in which mimicry has become a byword in
> poco and other fields--a packagable category that can travel--Spivak's
> terminologies are less mobile. Its not that Bhabha is less difficult but
> that somehow the categories he works with and has helped mobilize become so
> easily transportable whereas a term like strategic essentialism (as much as
> it has been used and abused) cannot function like mimicry or hybridity. I
> guess thats what i enjoy most about her work despite its often maddening
> self citation, ellipsis and opacity.
> 
> sangeeta
> 
> Sangeeta RAY
> Associate Professor
> Dept. of English
> Univ. of Maryland
> College Park MD 20740
> Email:Sangeeta_RAY-AT-umail.umd.edu (sr42)
> Phone: 301-405-3837
> 
> 
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