political science
Reza Najafzadeh
Abstract
This manuscript is devoted to the critique of Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Spivak as part of the study of history from below deconstructs historiography. Her central theme is the critique of the subaltern-maker sign system. She uses Althusserian concepts such as the theory of ...
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This manuscript is devoted to the critique of Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Spivak as part of the study of history from below deconstructs historiography. Her central theme is the critique of the subaltern-maker sign system. She uses Althusserian concepts such as the theory of ideology and apparatus alongside concepts such as the differential identity, trying to link the grammatological psychoanalysis to the political economy. This is the strength of her work, but there are also serious criticisms of her project. For example, Spivak blocks the path of claimed change and emancipation by declaring the subaltern's inability to speak and her need to be represented. Following Derrida's call to speak of the subaltern through the vague force within us, he opens the way for a kind of ecstatic intuition that works to release the power of imagination and aesthetic taste. Spivak wanted to make the subaltern studies a general theory by linking the international political economy with the hermeneutics of sacred, legal, and educational texts, and literary criticism, but she rarely moved beyond the realm of literary criticism. The validity of her critiques of Foucault and Deleuze can be questioned by referring to their original works.
