Other Asias

In this major intervention into the “Asian Century,” Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak challenges the reader to re–think Asia, in its political and cultural complexity, in the global South and in the metropole. Among the chapters in this volume are: “Foucault and Najibullah,” in which she looks at Afghanistan in its own historical and gendered narrative “Moving Devi,” in which she addresses the authority of autobiography and writes as a diasporic “Responsibility,” in which she examines the limits of “theory” upon the floodplains of Bangladesh “Megacity,” where she reads cyberliteracy in Bangalore. Other chapters focus on, among other things, Human Rights, and the turbulent “present” of the Caucasus.

Acknowledgments. Foreword. 1. Righting Wrongs – 2002: Accessing Democracy among the Aboriginals. 2. Responsibility – 1992: Testing Theory in the Plains. 3. 1994: Will Postcolonialism Travel?. 4. 1996: Foucault and Najibullah. 5. Megacity – 1997: Testing Theory in Cities. 6. Moving Devi – 1997: The Non–Resident and the Expatriate. 7. Our Asias – 2001: How to Be a Continentalist. Position without Identity –2004: An Interview with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak by Yan Hairong. Notes. Index

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s reputation was first established with her translation of and preface to Jacques Derrida’s De la grammatologie in 1976. Subsequently, she helped to establish the field of postcolonial studies and became a leading postcolonial theorist. Her key publications include In Other Worlds (1987), The Post–Colonial Critic (1990), Outside in the Teaching Machine (1993), and A Critique of Postcolonial Reason (1999).

“ Other Asias is an eloquent plea for a pedagogy of continental scope that does not evade or erode the singular, ‘textured’ life, thought and work of geographical regions and political minorities. The exemplary courage and extraordinary imagination that have distinguished Spivak′s work are now engaged in rich reflections on the political art of humanistic education.” Homi K. Bhabha, Harvard University “This deeply passionate, ethical, and political book tells us that we must pluralize Asia because it is only in a pluralized world that we can imagine a more just one.” Eduardo Cadava, Princeton University “Spivak’s postcolonial perspective here offers an incomparable understanding of Asia in its multiplicity of differences, a tour–de–force from one of our era’s most brilliant engaged and critical thinkers.” Robert J. C. Young, New York University