Spivak Speaks on Liberal Arts

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak defended the relevance of the humanities in a University lecture on "Thinking About the Humanities" held in Low Rotunda Wednesday evening.

Spivak, Avalon Foundation professor in the humanities and director of the Center for Comparative Literature and Society, gave the lecture which honored her recent recognition as Columbia's newest University professor, the highest rank that a faculty member can attain at Columbia. University Professors may teach in any part of the University.

Spivak is the third woman to ever hold the title, and the first woman of color. The appointment will be made effective on July 1.

Spivak was introduced by University President Lee Bollinger and Provost Alan Brinkley. Bollinger described Columbia's University professors as treasured "national parks of the University."

"And I won't say who is Yosemite Valley and who is Yellowstone," Bollinger quipped.

When Spivak stepped behind the lectern a few minutes later, she acknowledged Bollinger's words.

"I've been called many different things, but never a national park-thank you," Spivak said before launching into her speech.

Spivak said that her devotion to the humanities makes it hard for her to think of the fact that other people consider them irrelevant. Humanities-including philosophy, literature, and anthropology-remain relevant in education because they teach people how to think, training the mind as exercise trains the body, Spivak said. She added that the slow process of learning languages and cultivating imagination should "supplement" rapid globalization because it allows people to imagine a best-case scenario for a world beyond divisions.

But if global thought continues to mean learning English, then "the rest of the world will continue to think that global thought is American thought," and they'll hate the United States, she said.

Spivak also explained the importance of humanities across disciplines. "The humanities can train for a better world," she said. "They take time and patience."

Spivak's defense of the humanities was laden with academic jargon, but the audience appeared rapt.

"What I really liked about the talk was the emphasis on the really important work in the world the humanities do," Jean Howard, Vice Provost for Diversity Initiatives, whose office is concerned with retaining and promoting women and minority faculty, said after the speech.

An English professor, Howard also agreed with Spivak's emphasis on slow teaching as necessary for training imagination.

"I liked that running through her talk was this idea that empathy is essential to the study of the humanities," Tessa Paneth-Pollak, BC '07, said after the event. "I thought she was very gracious and poised."