Gayatri Spivak: Ethics, Subalternity and the Critique of Postcolonial Reason

"Courage and vision have carried the bold message of Gayatri Spivak’s remarkable work from the realms of pedagogy to the reaches of political practice. Morton’s study will enhance our grasp of her exemplary oeuvre."

Homi K. Bhabha, Anne F. Rothenberg, Harvard University

"Gayatri Spivak’s refusal to settle for the quick fix, the empty piety, the mere abstract calculus, or the language of expediency has never appeared more salutary than it does today. As violence counters violence in the name of moral righteousness, this lucid book, like Spivak’s own critique of postcolonial studies, is a timely reminder of the complicity between imagined liberal benevolence and the ruthless pursuit of global hegemony at any cost. If one slogan emerges from Stephen Morton’s analysis it is the ever more pressing need to 'learn to learn from the subaltern'. This is a task requiring patience and the learning of subaltern languages as 'active cultural media', not as mere instruments. Never has comparative literary and cultural studies beckoned so urgently."

Donna Landry, University of Kent at Canterbury