SPIVAK, GAYATRI

born Feb. 24, 1942, Calcutta, India in full Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Indian literary theorist, feminist critic, 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, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Spivak's English translation of French deconstructionist philosopher Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology was published in 1976. In a series of later essays Spivak urged women to become involved in, and to intervene in, the evolution of deconstruction theory. She also urged her colleagues to focus on women's historicity. Critical of phallogocentric (imperalist as well as Marxist) historical interpretation, Spivak accused bourgeois Western feminists of complicity with international capitalism in oppressing and exploiting women of the Third World. Her critical writings include In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics (1987), The Post-Colonial Critic (1990), Thinking Academic Freedom in Gendered Post-Coloniality (1992), and Outside in the Teaching Machine (1993). She also published Imaginary Maps (1994), a collection of translations of Indian short stories.