Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (born February 24, 1942, Calcutta [now Kolkata], India) is an Indian literary theorist, feminist critic, postcolonial theorist, and professor of comparative literature noted for her personal brand of deconstructive criticism, which she called “interventionist.”

Educated in Calcutta (B.A., 1959) and at the University of Cambridge and Cornell University (Ph.D., 1967), she taught English and comparative literature at the Universities of Iowa, Texas, Pittsburgh, and Pennsylvania and at Columbia University. She was appointed University Professor at Columbia in 2007.

In 1976 Spivak published Of Grammatology, an English translation of French deconstructionist philosopher Jacques Derrida’s  De la grammatologie (1967). In a series of later essays Spivak urged women to become involved in, and to intervene in, the evolution of deconstructive theory. She also urged her colleagues to focus on women’s historicity. Critical of “phallogocentric” (imperialist as well as Marxist) historical interpretation, Spivak accused “bourgeois” Western feminists of complicity with international capitalism in oppressing and exploiting women of the developing world.

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Her critical writings included In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics (1987), The Post-Colonial Critic (1990), Thinking Academic Freedom in Gendered Post-Coloniality (1992), Outside in the Teaching Machine (1993), A Critique of Postcolonial Reason (1999), Death of a Discipline (2003), Other Asias (2005), and Readings (2014). Spivak was awarded the Padma Bhushan, one of India’s highest honors, in 2013. She was named the 2025 Holberg laureate by the Holberg Prize Committee in Norway for her groundbreaking interdisciplinary research in comparative literature, translation, postcolonial studies, political philosophy, and feminist theory. The prize, established by the Norwegian Parliament, is one of the most prestigious international awards for outstanding contributions to the humanities, social sciences, law, and theology.