Listening to the other : explorations in subaltern representation
According to Gayatri Spivak, subalternity is an inherent paradox: it is “a position without identity”. Retrieving the subaltern subject from the periphery of hegemonic discourse risks destroying its inherent alterity, and yet adhering to the status quo disregards the political realities surrounding...
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| Format: | Final Year Project (FYP) |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2012
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/100048 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/7796 |
| _version_ | 1811682984915369984 |
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| author | Er, Yanbing. |
| author2 | Yong Wern Mei |
| author_facet | Yong Wern Mei Er, Yanbing. |
| author_sort | Er, Yanbing. |
| collection | NTU |
| description | According to Gayatri Spivak, subalternity is an inherent paradox: it is “a position without identity”. Retrieving the subaltern subject from the periphery of hegemonic discourse risks destroying its inherent alterity, and yet adhering to the status quo disregards the political realities surrounding it as well. If we were to take a cue from Spivak then, who suggests subaltern studies to be a “strategic use of positivist essentialism in a scrupulously visible political interest”, we would acknowledge that studying the subaltern subject will always be marked with ambivalence and absence, but it is also possible that existing institutionalised systems of representation are brought to crisis by persistent critique. Strategic methods of approaching the liminal position of the subaltern subject will thus be explored in this essay through two short stories by Punjab writer Sadaat Hasan Manto, and the film Reassemblage by Vietnamese filmmaker Trinh T. Minh-ha. They will be used to demonstrate that the question ‘Who should speak?’ should never be as crucial as the question ‘Who will listen?’ in the interpretive scholarship surrounding subalternity, and that the real demand for political agency lies in our ability to listen to the irreducible presence of the subaltern subject. |
| first_indexed | 2024-10-01T04:05:32Z |
| format | Final Year Project (FYP) |
| id | ntu-10356/100048 |
| institution | Nanyang Technological University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-10-01T04:05:32Z |
| publishDate | 2012 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ntu-10356/1000482020-09-27T20:11:06Z Listening to the other : explorations in subaltern representation Er, Yanbing. Yong Wern Mei School of Humanities and Social Sciences DRNTU::Humanities::Literature According to Gayatri Spivak, subalternity is an inherent paradox: it is “a position without identity”. Retrieving the subaltern subject from the periphery of hegemonic discourse risks destroying its inherent alterity, and yet adhering to the status quo disregards the political realities surrounding it as well. If we were to take a cue from Spivak then, who suggests subaltern studies to be a “strategic use of positivist essentialism in a scrupulously visible political interest”, we would acknowledge that studying the subaltern subject will always be marked with ambivalence and absence, but it is also possible that existing institutionalised systems of representation are brought to crisis by persistent critique. Strategic methods of approaching the liminal position of the subaltern subject will thus be explored in this essay through two short stories by Punjab writer Sadaat Hasan Manto, and the film Reassemblage by Vietnamese filmmaker Trinh T. Minh-ha. They will be used to demonstrate that the question ‘Who should speak?’ should never be as crucial as the question ‘Who will listen?’ in the interpretive scholarship surrounding subalternity, and that the real demand for political agency lies in our ability to listen to the irreducible presence of the subaltern subject. Bachelor of Arts in English 2012-04-13T06:38:14Z 2019-12-06T20:15:44Z 2012-04-13T06:38:14Z 2019-12-06T20:15:44Z 2011 2011 Final Year Project (FYP) Er, Y. (2011). Listening to the Other : Explorations in Subaltern Representation. Final year project report, Nanyang Technological University. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/100048 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/7796 en 36 p. application/pdf |
| spellingShingle | DRNTU::Humanities::Literature Er, Yanbing. Listening to the other : explorations in subaltern representation |
| title | Listening to the other : explorations in subaltern representation |
| title_full | Listening to the other : explorations in subaltern representation |
| title_fullStr | Listening to the other : explorations in subaltern representation |
| title_full_unstemmed | Listening to the other : explorations in subaltern representation |
| title_short | Listening to the other : explorations in subaltern representation |
| title_sort | listening to the other explorations in subaltern representation |
| topic | DRNTU::Humanities::Literature |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/100048 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/7796 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT eryanbing listeningtotheotherexplorationsinsubalternrepresentation |