The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: The 2025 Holberg Prize has been awarded to esteemed Indian scholar Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in recognition of her groundbreaking contributions to the fields of literary theory and philosophy.
Born in Kolkata in 1942, Spivak is an alumnus of the University of Calcutta and Cornell University. Currently holding the position of professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, Spivak is widely regarded as one of the most influential global intellectuals today.
Throughout her illustrious career, Spivak has made profound impacts on various disciplines, including comparative literature, translation, postcolonial studies, political philosophy, and feminist theory. Her seminal essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1988), has become a foundational text in postcolonial studies, challenging Western scholarship and highlighting the struggles of minoritised groups.
Spivak’s concept of “planetarity,” introduced in her book Death of a Discipline (2003), offers an ethical alternative to globalisation. Her influential works also include Critique of Postcolonial Reason (1999), An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalisation (2012), and Ethics and Politics in Tagore, Coetzee and Certain Scenes of Teaching (2018).
“As a public intellectual and activist, Spivak combats illiteracy in marginalised rural communities across several countries, including in West Bengal, India where she has founded, funded and participated in educational initiatives. For Spivak, rigorous creativity must intersect with local initiatives to provide alternatives to intellectual colonialism,” The Holberg committee chair Heike Krieger, wrote.
The committee added: “Her concepts, such as “strategic essentialism” and “global criticality,” are now widely used and debated. Spivak’s work challenges readers, students, and researchers to “train the imagination” through a sustained study of literature and culture. Taking the core of Western thought as an object of critical analysis, she has inspired, enabled, and supported otherwise inconceivable lines of critical interrogations – both at the centres and margins of global modernity.”