Life
Spivak was born Gayatri Chakravorty, to parents Pares Chandra and Sivani Chakravorty, in Calcutta, India, 24 February 1942. After completing her school education from the St. John's Diocesan Girls' Higher Secondary School, she received an undergraduate degree in English at the Presidency College, Kolkata under the University of Calcutta (1959), graduating with first class honours and received gold medals for English and Bengali literature. After this, she attended Cornell University where she completed her M.A. in English and pursued her Ph.D. in comparative literature, while teaching at the University of Iowa.
Her dissertation was on W.B. Yeats, directed by Paul de Man at Cornell, titled Myself Must I Remake: The Life and Poetry of W.B. Yeats. At Cornell, she was the second woman elected to membership in the Telluride Association. She was briefly married to Talbot Spivak in the 1960s. The Bride Wore the Traditional Gold by Talbot Spivak is an autobiographical novel that deals with the early years of this marriage.
In March 2007 Spivak became the University Professor at Columbia University, making her the only woman of color to be bestowed the University's highest honor in its 264-year history.
In June 2012, she was awarded the Kyoto Prize for arts and philosophy.
Read more about this topic: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
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