Taḥqīqāt-i Farhangī-i Īrān (Aug 2009)
Archaeology of Human Sciences in Postcolonial Discourse
Abstract
In 1985 Gayatri Spivak, criticizing western academic communities, proposed this question that “Can the subaltern speak? “ The answer to this question necessitates the consideration of humanities and any kinds of discourse which bring about subalterns. Postcolonial discourse as a critical, liberal, and anticolonial criticizes this discourse. Postcolonial thinker seeks a period during which an eastern person was defined against a western person. Identification modern subject is the topic that the postcolonial thinker like Michael Foucault questions about while dealing with archaeology. The appearance of a person as an eastern dates back to the time when the existence of the outside world resulted from the subject. An eastern can speak when s/he criticizes the subject based on which the humanities are constructed. Obtaining a definition of human being and the way s/she faces the world in order to understand it, is the primary step of introducing an alternative for authoritative humanities. Postcolonial thinker‘s method in understanding other and the outside world based on intersubjectivity. By establishing human studies instead of western humanities and local humanities and by critical view on spivak’s intellectual paradigm, this method of understanding provides spivak’s question with a positive answer contrary to his own negative answer.
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