there was little discussion of the fact that the
>folks we were reading in the subaltern studies trad were members of the
>elite.
Do people mention that Marx was from the lower nobility when reading *the 18th Brumaire*? Or that Paul Sweezy was from the financial aristocracy when reading *Theory of Capitalist Development*? Or that my hero Grossmann was from a wealthy mine owning family? Don't we scoff at rightwingers who take the easy way out by dismissing the texts with such 'criticism'? Should we say that *Origin of Species* is a piece of bourgeois propaganda because Darwin was from a wealthy land owning family (or rather should we note that he was well positioned to study the theory and practice of husbandry on which he based the analogy to natural selection)?
"what? you think
>this is important? this is a criticism of their work, that they are
>members of the elite?
I don't think it's that important on the face of it. Perhaps the attraction to the idealism of post structuralist discourse reveals a class bias, but this can be gotten at better through a critique of their work than speculation about their class origin (did you really know anything about the class background of all the members before raising this criticism--Guha is no less upfront about this than the elite third world kids you knew, so how could this have been news to anyone in the class?) There is also the interesting question of some of the subalternists' relation to the naxalite violence in the 70s; there may indeed be an interesting story here of the path to academic conservatism after a flirtation with an armed Maoist movement. That would have to be discussed to round out the biography as well, no?
By the way, I suppose that Eagleton is taking off from Aijaz Ahmad in this review, but do note how much more substantive Ahmad's criticism of, say, Edward Said is than Eagleton's is of Spivak.
> what? don't you want to take responsibility for
>white imperialist racism. it doesn't matter how elite they are, their
>wealth and status is no match for what they must fight--global white
>imperialist racism"
Kelley, this is doubtless a caricature or worse case example of the white (and colored) kids interested in post colonial studies. And I wish we didn't have to make it sound pathological for any white person to be interested in the literature and representation of India. At any rate, do you think there is imperialism or simply a transfer of value through the formation of intl production prices (Carchedi) or adverse terms of trade (Junne) or the concentration of dynamic sectors in only a few countries (Siegel) or the repatriation of massive amounts of profit (Roger Tang?) or financial imperialism organized by the IMF (Biplab Dasgupta)? Do you think there is racism?
Anyways, the subalternists of whom there is supposedly a thorough critique by a former more Marxist member Sumit Sarkar are quite clear that they were offering criticism of third world bourgeois nationalist historians.
> there is a kind of moral entrepreneurship that
>takes place in order to shut certain critiques down and in this instance i
>think it has much to do with the attempt to silence class analyses in the
>academy.
Kelley, it's a bit absurd to argue that the subalternists themselves are not interested at all in class analysis; for goodness' sake, what of the subaltern studies trad, as you put it, did you read in this class? It couldn't have been the volume ed. Guha and Spivak, yet that must have been the assigned class reading.
To be honest, I think an argument can be made that the subalternists represent a Poulantzas-like transition, now almost fully completed, out of class-based and materialist analysis (btw, there is a Chandrashakar located somewhere in the UK who has written a history of the 19th-early 20th century Indian working class that seems to be an implicit, though intended, challenge to subalternist methods). Perhaps they were even further along than Poulantzas. But the argument has to be made; on the face of it, they were quite interested in the class and elite biases of historians and even more so the bourgeois nature of the Congress leadership. I can't see how the concept of class could be elided in discussion of their work or why you would have been such a rebel in raising the issue.
The more recent post structuralist turns may be criticised; their anti statism and anti modernism questioned; their flirtation with critiques of secularism are very troublesome--Achin Vanaik has raised such criticism. So has Sarkar from what I understand (from a friend who is a published author on proto industrialisation in India). I would imagine that Vasant Kaiwar and Sucheta Mazumdar would have very interesting criticisms, they edit the journal formerly known as South Asian Bulletin out of Duke, and Kaiwar has worked with Brenner from what I understand; after all, they first published Meera Nanda's much welcomed criticism of Vandana Shiva. I repeat: at the outset the subaltern school was quite concerned with class analysis though in ways that are of course open to criticism.
Moreover, Spivak is not a member of the school. She has however translated Mahesweta Devi's short stories. I met Devi at a Fulbright lecture she gave at Berkeley. She mentioned that Spivak was head and shoulders above her other translators.
in part, i think this is because by the time you get to
>graduate school everyone is pretty much from the uppermiddle class and, if
>not, you learn pretty quickly to shut up about it because it will get you
>no where.
Well this supposition surely works against those who are not from such a background--a kind of pretending we are all equal while some won't have parents to bail them out over the summer and thus become quite preoccupied with non academic concerns. I take it that this is your point.
>
>so why disclose? what could be the point? we're all good, well
>intentioned white folks reading brown not dead women instead of dead white
>guys so proof positive, no doubt, that we've already unpacked our knapsacks
>of privilege, don't you think?
I read mostly alive or just dead white men, and would recommend it to anyone. Even the Spivak followers probably read a lot of Derrida (an Algerian Jew alas) and the last real white men DeMan and Heidegger (many "postcos" are probably a tad bit more sophisticated and cynical than righteous as you suggest here). We all read dead and live white men; that's what gives us our unity, purpose and common language here. We all live under the gaze of Mr Charlie.
what's the point? what can we do about it?
> we're already reading the right authors?
Kelley, what about Spivak's idea of sanctioned ignorance--that one can be considered educated without having any clue about all kinds of important things. To me this seems the more important problem.
what more can you want? what do
>you want me to do give up the car my parents gave me? give you some of my
>money? and what does it matter to you anyway, just by virtue of being here
>you'll one day be uppermiddle class so what gives you the right to speak to
>working class issues? and besides, you're white, you can pass. no one has
>to know about your background. it didn't stand in your way did it, it's
>not like being a person of color.
Yes, middle class kids of whatever color go slummin in their youth. At any rate, now you are not defending Eagleton's failure to engage a single argument or interpretation in Spivak's book--including of the novels he knows quite a bit about. From Eagleton's "review" we have some idea that Spivak discusses the complicity of multiculturalism in the transnationalisation of capital, though we don't know if anything more than a benneton ad is being invoked here or if it goes beyond the kinds of things A Sivanandan used to write. And from what I can gather this is only a part of the book.
I want to clear up an embarrasing mistake. I was not shot with a bullet. I was invited to a party by a bunch of white yahoos so they could use me as target practice with their b-b guns. They weren't trying to kill me, only hurt and humiliate me. It was not an experience at all reflective of childhood, and I got over it since we had soon moved to a new town. It is very uncomfortable having to bring up your background in the course of arguments,but I felt like I had to mention (esp the priviliged) parts of mine in order to object to the character of the review by Eagleton, lest someone note my personal contradictions as counter-criticism. I simply think Eagleton has put his critics in a defensive, uncomfortable and unfair position through argument ad hominem. I also don't think he had much to say.
yours, rakesh