IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 1000

Sowmit Chandra Chanda

PhD Research Scholar

Department of Diaspora and Migration Studies.

SAP, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad-380009. India.

[email protected]

Interpretation of Cultural Identity and Comparative Literature: Special Reference to Mikhail

Bakhtin and Gayatri Spivak

Abstract: ‘Cultural Identity’ and ‘Comparative Literature’ as a term are very much integrated
in terms of interpretation. But, neither culture complements ‘cultural identity’ nor literature
embraces solely ‘comparative literature’; specially for comparative literature, since Gayatri
Spivak argues for ‘a new comparative literature’ and proposes an alternative studies of
traditional mode of studying this discipline, it takes a new dimension beyond the periphery of
literature. Spivak urges to rethink comparative literature in the new paradigm of migration,
diaspora, ethnic-studies and cross-cultural interpretation. Now comparative literature cannot
be only confined within literature, rather its deal would more have with the rise of cultural
studies, under which cultural identity has been taught. Mikhail Bakhtin put significant
argument on cultural identity and comparative literature. He said, no cultural identity can be
understood without understanding the otherness of an entity, the interrelation between
comparative literature and cultural identity supposed to leave their traditional relation of
interpretation with a view for a new diagram. Bakhtin and Spivak both urged for the
representation of East in comparative world and this is where they shake hand to each other.
This paper tries to study reinterpretation between comparative literature and cultural identity
with special reference to Bakhtin and Spivak.

Key Words: Culture, Cultural Identity, Comparative Literature, Gayatri Spivak, Literature,
Mikhail Bakhtin etc.
IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 1001

Introduction

“Under Louis XIV the French had the courage to consider

their own culture a valid model on a par with that of the ancients, and
they imposed this view upon the rest of Europe.” (Anderson, 1983, pp.
68-69)

“All identities can possibly exist with their ‘differance’ (with

an “a” instead of “e”) There is no culture or cultural identity which
does not have its ‘other’ of the ‘self’.” (Derrida, 1978, p. 129)

‘Identity’ is a very common term, which differs individuals. Other way, it means,
‘identity’ defines individuals by othering one from another. “Because the identity means to the
‘other’, it is defined, determined and nominated by the ‘other’.” (İnaç & Ünal, 2013, p. 223).
Two aforementioned quotations, said by Benedict Anderson and Jacques Derrida respectively,
are simply notable for there indication towards ‘othering’. Meanwhile, Stuart Hall writes a
tremendous definition of ‘Identity’, which refers to link the past and the present (Hall, 1996, p.
02):

“Identity is such a concept – operating ‘under erasure’ in the interval between

reversal and emergence; an idea which cannot be thought in old way, but
without which certain key questions cannot be thought at all.”

In a greater range and stage, ‘identity’ not only recognizes an individual, it also
recognizes the family, group, ethnicity, society, ecology, climate, class, race, religion, gender,
location, nation, nation-state, culture etc. it belongs to.

The aforementioned nouns are wide spread means of one’s introduction in all over the
world. Thus, differences take place from genre to genre and the beauty of these differences is,
they require their own identity to introduce themselves. The process is certainly unique in that
manner since every types of genre have different categories among them.

Out of those, this paper is dealing with the interpretation of aspects, formations and
interrelation of ‘Cultural Identity’ with comparative literature in an interdisciplinary manner.
IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 1002

It focuses to re-interpreting the formation of cultural identity, where comparative literature

usually has a role to part. This special discipline of universal knowledge, the comparative
literature as a way of studying, understanding and interpreting world literature, is also has a
major objective to identify the cross-cultural intersections. As a concept of modern era, cultural
identity has been interpreted through comparative studies. To evaluate the interpretation and
how it actually works, it brings this paper under spotlight also.

To be specific towards our proposal, culture always personifies identification regardless

one’s any sort of introduction. ‘Cultural Identity’ has been gaining its breath form the 19th
century and in the 20th century it cementing itself as a being to exist for multidisciplinary
concept and interdisciplinary contextual (Skulj, 2000). On the other hand, literature is a
powerful representative of culture. Literature represents culture widely and culture also been
imaged in literature through various components. Comparative literature does no difference;
but the way of study seems critical with comparing one with another.

Meanwhile, there is debate still going on — whether ‘comparative literature’ now a

days as a term, exists or not (Spivak, 2009). We have a special consideration on this point to
interpreting the formation of cultural study through comparative literature. But, it is quite
evident that, in terms of describing cultural identity, comparative literature deconstructs
transnational, multidisciplinary, multicultural and cross-cultural permutation-combination to
understand its position with various cultural relations. On the other side, nationalism is also a
very big aspect in relation between cultural identity and comparative literature (İnaç & Ünal,
2013). The wave of nationalism was the by-production of colonial period all over the world.
Colony, basically, introduced its language, literature, history etc. to the colonized people. That
turned into comparison with the native history, vernacular and literature itself (Han & Wen,
2017). The comparisons were certainly from the nationalist approaches and colony or the
politically powerful country got extra aged (Spivak, 2009). No way, comparative studies, or
specifically literature, can get rid of this context while talking about the formation of cultural
identity.

Culture and Cultural Identity

Culture maintains no bound. It is actually transnational and in that process, it creates

cross-cultural aspects to interpret it. Means, it possess a huge fraternity of its own and exist
IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 1003

with no demarcation. Hence, it may be said, to some extend, it is the combination of all the
belongings from family, group, ethnicity, society, ecology, climate, class, race, religion,
gender, location, nation, nation-state etc. The unit of these belonging is certainly individual.
An individual may belong to as much aspects as we mention here at the same time.
Accumulation of which creates a brand of culture, which forms different identity compare to
one another. But, how culture belongs as a being with this accumulative togetherness of
different aspects? Here is an example from Benedict Anderson.

Anderson, in his widely discussed book ‘Imagined Community’, pointed out by

referring Aira Kemilanien that, culture and character has been directly linked with climate and
ecology, what was told by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and later by Johann Gottfried Herder
(Kemilainen, 1964, pp. 72-73). “… the writings of Rousseau and Herder, which argued that
climate and ‘ecology’ had a constitutive impact on culture and character, exerted wide
influence. It was only too easy from there to make the convenient, vulgar deduction that
Creoles, born in a savage hemisphere, were by nature different from, and inferior to, the
metropolitans — and thus unfit for higher office.” (Anderson, 1983, p. 60)

Now we will discuss, how culture and cultural identity are truly two different things all
together. The later one is studied under cultural studies, which denotes how hegemony
constructs through culture. So, ‘Cultural Identity’ has connection with hegemony. It is
something which is related to an individual’s self-perception. It is the affirmation that a person
belongs to a particular group which has its own discrete culture. But as it is the matter of
identity, it relates with nationality, religion, ethnicity, generation, locality, gender, race, social
and religious belief and social class — as we mentioned earlier. And this is how it connects
individual with the society as well as separate a group from the other cultural groups.

The theory of cultural identity touches the wider aspects of the human existence such
as ancestry, traditions, language, heritage, religion, aesthetics, thinking patterns, and social
structures of a particular culture. Myron Lustig observes, in terms of a particular person’s
‘sense of self’, which carries the personality immensely; the central part of this self recognition
is cultural identity. Because, as Lustig says, cultural identities are: “central, dynamic and
multifaceted components of one’s self concept.” (Lustig, 2013, p. 133)
IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 1004

Michael Shidler, in his research article, with reference to the theoretical works of E. J.
Hobsbawm and Trevor Roper, shows us that, cultural identity is nothing but carrying the legacy
of ancestors any convey it to the descendants. Shidler writes: “…cultural identity is a
mechanism whose sole purpose is to establish a group as being connected to a past thereby
legitimizing the present and giving precedent for future action. This ideology is most applicable
to a group’s narrative and from there extends to the understanding of myths, traditions, and
historical revisionism.” (Shindler, 2014)

Normally an individual carries multiple identities with the conflicting state of mind.
The theory of identity has different view on social identity and cultural identity. However, both
of them intertwining with each other as one plays a role in other’s formation. In countries like
US and Canada where people belong with different ethnic identities, the social harmony is
mainly based on the common social values (Hecht, Jackson II, & Ribeau, 2003, pp. 03-04).
But, in contrary to this, Sue and Sue explained, “there is an enormous distinction between
diversity and multiculturalism. The United States is very diverse, but still has a pressing need
for multicultural-ism. Diversity simply suggests difference, whereas multiculturalism implies
inclusiveness and embrace of differences.” (Sue & Sue, 1999)

Nevertheless, some critics of cultural identity argues that identity based on culture is a
negative and divisive force in a society. Language is an important factor in forming the cultural
identity as it is the medium of sharing ideas, beliefs and thoughts. (Boski, Strus, & Tlaga, 2004)

Boksi, Strus and Tlaga in their empirical research work, have written a difference
between ‘cultural identity’ and ‘social identity’. They mention (Boski, Strus, & Tlaga, 2004):
“Social identity has been conceptualized as a sense of Weness, or attachment to a group that
one is a member of, and by comparison to Others. It has been demonstrated that a single
distinctive criterion is sufficient to create such elementary psychological phenomena. The
sense of Weness remains culturally empty, however. Even with natural groups it is portrayed
in trait attributes, which is not different from those used to characterize individuals. Cultural
identity refers, in contrast, to the content of values as guiding principles, to meaningful
symbols, and to lifestyles that individuals share with others, though not necessarily within
recognizable groups.”
IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 1005

Now, if we talk about the ‘formations of cultural identity’, we see these would
experience their own ‘deconstruction’. In addition to that, these also embrace the cultural
relations of permanent multiplication. Meanwhile, the problem of defining ‘cultural identity’
put us to deal cross-cultural relation between cultures and in that regards, this thinking pattern
of knowledge preeminently belongs to comparative literature. (Skulj, 2000) It means, cultural
identity and cross-culture have a very good tie up with comparative mode of studies in the field
of literature.

Jola Skulj, from Research Centre of the Slovene Academy of Sciences and Arts, in her
research paper denotes that cultural identity being a component of historical process is always
meant to be changed. She remarks: ‘Cultural identity – as an element of the historical process
cannot remain of the same nature and is never a perpetuation of itself; it cannot be preserved
in a fixed, unchanged form; it inherits the “divine privilege” to introduce its authentic construct
of alterity and innovative nature into itself through its continuous contact with the Other and
Otherness. According to this, cultural identity as expressed in literature is re-established
through constant dialogue with other cultures and literatures. This dialogic nature pre-
determines that the study of cultural identity and/in literature is best performed in and with the
tools of the discipline of comparative literature.’ (Skulj, 2000)

Comparative Literature and Cultural Identity: Bakhtin’s Argument

Since this paper’s motive is to put interest on revisiting Mikhail Mikhailovich (M.M)
Bakhtin’s argument on comparative literature and cultural identity, the proposal of Skulj in her
research is been worked like a south window to take breath. Skulj understanding to Bakhtin’s
theory is praiseful with vivid expression. She proposes that (Skulj, 2000):

“Within comparative literature, …a most appropriate methodology for the study

of cultural identity be provided by the work of Bakhtin. More precisely, I mean
Bakhtin where he goes beyond the metaphysical orientation of the earlier
formalists and where he developed his ideas under the specific circumstances
of prescribed ideological monism and totalitarianism. Both contexts, the
formalist and the totalitarian, evoked specific philosophical and theoretical
responses by Bakhtin and his followers and served the unmasking of
fundamental flaws in the organisation of Western rationality. Bakhtin's views
IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 1006

of dialogism, in fact, extricate European rationality from its predicaments in that

they mediate toward an ideology of otherness. The event of Bakhtinian ideology
of otherness as overcoming ideological monologism was due to the historical
changes in the self-consciousness of European thought after the initial
manifestations of Modernism.”

Mikhail Bakthin’s thought on this particular issue can be scrutinized in a manner that,
he thinks, literature cannot be discussed or criticized only under socio-economic perspectives
or other factors, rather than taking consideration of cultural aspects. Thus, these factors
influence culture as a whole. Literary process is solely depends on cultural factor. Here is his
argument on the relation between literature and culture, where he said: “Literature is an
inseparable part of the totality of culture and cannot be studied outside the total cultural context.
It cannot be severed from the rest of culture and related directly (by-passing culture) to socio-
economic or other factors. These factors influence culture as a whole and only through it and
in conjunction with it do they affect literature. The literary process is a part of the cultural
process and cannot be torn away from it.” (Bakhtin, 1986, p. 140)

Then, Bakhtin’s thoughts on the explanation of literature with cultural identity are very
much depend on the liberal coherent of acceptance by an individual. Bakhtin said as follows
(Bakhtin, 1986, pp. 6-7):

“There exists a very strong, but one-sided and thus untrustworthy, idea that in
order better to understand a foreign culture, one must enter into it, forgetting
one's own, and view the world through the eyes of this foreign culture. This
idea, as I said, is one-sided. Of course a certain entry as living being into a
foreign culture, the possibility of seeing world through its eyes, is a necessary
part of the process of understanding it; but if this were the only aspect of this
understanding, it would merely be duplication and would not entail anything
new enriching. For one cannot even really see one's own exterior and
comprehend it as a whole, and no mirrors or photographs can help; our real
exterior can be seen and understood only by other people, because they are
located outside us in space and because they are others.”
IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 1007

Going forward with his thought of this ‘otherness’ Bakhtin emphasized that, to
understand one’s culture, otherness is the mighty fact we need to consider. He said (Bakhtin,
1986, p. 6):

“In the realm of culture, outsideness is a most powerful factor in understanding.

It is only in the eyes of another culture that foreign culture reveals itself fully
and profoundly. ... A meaning only reveals its depth once it has encountered and
come into contact with another, foreign meaning: they engage in a kind of
dialogue, which surmounts the closedness and one-sidedness of these particular
meanings, these cultures. We raise new questions for a foreign culture, ones that
it did not raise itself ... we seek answers to our own questions in it; and the
foreign culture responds to us by revealing to us its new aspects and new
semantic depths. Without one's own questions one cannot creatively understand
anything other or foreign. Such a dialogic encounter of two cultures does not
result in merging or mixing. Each retains its own unity and open totality, but
they are mutually enriched.”

In another phase, Bakhtin says, how world culture and world literature have bounded
themselves together. At the same time, he also said, for the sake of modernization, how we
impoverish the past and we cannot connect to it, which is essential to relate cultural identity
with literature or with so many aspects. Bakhtin says: “Science (and cultural consciousness) of
the nineteenth century singled out only a miniature world from the boundless world of
literature. This miniature world included almost nothing of the East. The world of culture and
literature is essentially as boundless as the universe. We are speaking not about its geographical
breadth, but about its semantic depths, which are as bottomless as the depths of matter. The
infinite diversity of interpretations, images, figurative semantic combinations, materials and
their interpretations, and so forth. We have narrowed it terribly by selecting and by
modernizing what has been selected. We impoverish the past and do not enrich ourselves. We
are suffocating in the captivity of narrow and homogeneous interpretations.” (Bakhtin, 1986,
p. 140)

Thus Jola Sculj concludes with saying that, ‘otherness’ is the foremost fact of our
cultural identity, where one cannot deny the inherent question of politics also: “Our cultural
IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 1008

identity is our intertext. The immense and boundless world of Otherness constitutes a primary
fact of existence of our cultural identity. … The presence of interests in Bakhtin's definition of
cultural identity reveals that the question of politics is indispensably inherent in the event of
culture through history.” (Skulj, 2000)

Comparative Literature and Cultural Identity: Spivak’s Interpretation

The origin of Comparative Literature has been nearly regarded as early as the nineteenth
century in Europe and North America (Hart, 2006). The German word Weltliteratur (Spivak,
2009) or the phrase ‘World Literature’, which was originally coined as a concept by Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe in the 19th century, had lead the embryo of comparative literature in the
near future.

A fundamental aspect of Comparative Literature is to cultivate reading across linguistic

boundaries in order to highlight everything that the limited focus on a national literature tends
to ambiguous. Literature and readers have both always ranged outside the boundaries of one
national language. Comparative literature is important for its cross-cultural orientation.
Comparative literature allows to see the connections and distinctions between different cultural
texts. There is a unity of outlook as the writers in different languages arise their stimulation
from a common source and face almost same kind of experiences irrespective of them being
emotional or intellectual. Due to this ideology and due to the need of analysing different
literatures of the word, comparative literature has been born. Comparative literature takes all
the world literature on the same scale. In the process of the analytical and comparative study,
all the universal characteristics of literature have been evolved. For the study of comparative
literature comparison is the basic tool. As Richard A. Peterson states: ‘comparison is one of
the most powerful tools used in intellectual inquiry, since an observation made repeatedly is
given more credence than is a single observation.’ (ZEPETNEK & MUKHERJEE, 2013)

On the Other way, In the article Reflections on the Crisis of Comparative Literature in
the Contemporary West (Han & Wen, 2017) it has been stated that: ‘French scholars abandoned
“comparison”, and defined comparative literature as “international relationship of literature”
though, they still had comparability named sameness of source; while US-American scholars
picked up “comparison”, and strived to seek for sameness in literature type, theme, genre,
literary theory etc., and similarities between literature and other subjects. French scholars and
IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 1009

American scholars, based on comparability, have come up with their own specific paradigm,
and thus built two schools of comparative literature.’

Comparison may be used in the kind of literary study to specify affinity, tradition or
influence. Affinity consists in resemblances in style, structure, mood or idea between two
works. A work of art cannot be analyzed, criticized and assessed without alternative to critical
principles. Comparison and contrast are the apparatuses in the formation of the method of
comparative criticism. Since comparison has made up from formal and stylistic or historical or
sociological or other points of view, comparative criticism cuts obliquely across the other types
and might reasonably be taken as a subdivision of each of them. But, it does have a range of its
own. The term ‘comparative’ properly refers to criticism that jumps the boundary lines between
regional and national literatures. (Hart, 2006)

From here on, our arguments will be heading on the basis of Gayatri Chakravorty
Spivak’s interpretation, argument and opinion. Spivak, one of the leading theorist on
Comparative Literature, basically proposed an alternative and totalitarian studies compare to
the traditional mode of studies on this discipline through her famous book Death of A Discipline
(DOAD) published in 2003, initially was written for the Wellek Library Lectures in May 2000
at University of California at Irvine; where she told: “I have changed nothing of the urgency of
my call for ‘a new comparative literature’. I hope the book (Death of A Discipline) will be read
as the last gasp of a dying discipline.” (Spivak, Death of a Discipline, 2003, p. XII). But the
following piece on ‘comparison’ has been excerpt from her another research article named
‘Rethinking Comparativism’, which was published in 2009. Here she argued (Spivak,
Rethinking Comparativism, 2009, pp. 609-610):

“… comparison assumes a level playing field and the field is never level, if only
in terms of the interest implicit in the perspective. It is, in other words, never a
question of compare and contrast, but rather a matter of judging and choosing.
When the playing fields are not even continuous, the problem becomes
immense. Most metropolitan countries acknowledge the problem simply
because of the volume of migration in recent decades. There, a certain degree
of levelness is already established.”
IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 1010

Whatever Spivak says regarding Comparative Literature and its activities, those are
base on her affirmative assumption about the discipline. Though, question to be ask that, she
declared the discipline ‘died’ in the heading, but in the preface she called it ‘dying’ (p. XII).
One may have doubt, whether Spivak had that doubt still on her thought and to some extent in
some places her narrations are saying that she is not quite confident enough to declare her own
proposal. Still, we have to recognize, on contrary to the thinking pattern and hegemonic
establishment of the West, Spivak has shown some crisis of the discipline. Spivak started by
stating: “Since 1992, three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the discipline of comparative
literature has been looking to renovate itself. This is presumably in response to the rising tide
of multiculturalism and cultural studies.” (Spivak, Death of a Discipline, 2003, p. 01)

Thus Jonathan Hart said, “It comes as no surprise that Spivak continues to call for a
new comparative literature. She sees Comparative Literature as something in need of
renovation in response to the rising tide of multiculturalism and cultural studies.” (Hart, 2006)
Same thing has been echoed after more than a decade of Spivak’s prescription in various
researches; like Han and Wen say: “The trend of subject expansion is a result of the impact of
various cultural theories in the multicultural era…” (Han & Wen, 2017) Even, way back in
1993, The manifestation through the report introduced by the president of the American
Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Charles Bernheimer (Bernheimer, 1995, pp. X-
XI) – headed ‘Comparative Literature at the Turn of the Century’ – suggested that,
Comparative Literature became turn into a discipline of cultural studies and the traditional old
school thoughts needed to be readjusted with the new studies, those are required.

On the other hand, before Spivak, Bassnett Susan also urged for the change of the
discipline in 1993. She prescribed to divorce the traditional “old mode of binary research on
two writers or texts from two different cultural systems” (Han & Wen, 2017). Susan asked to
have research on intercultural transfer and suggested: “we should look upon translation studies
as the principal discipline from now on, with comparative literature as a valued but subsidiary
subject area.” (Susan, 1993, p. 161) But, compare to Susan, Spivak actually go beyond with
her proposals and those are radicalized by conceptions. Spivak questioned the West-centric
tendency of the discipline by saying: “Insofar as Comparative Literature remains part of the
Euro–U.S. cultural dominant…” (Spivak, Death of a Discipline, 2003, p. 25) She added while
concluding her first chapter Crossing Borders of DOAD, how time makes new paradigm for
the discipline:
IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 1011

‘…liberal multiculturalism has been on the agenda of Comparative Literature

for some time. Cultural Studies and Ethnic Studies are on the rise, and many
minority protests that I have witnessed say, in effect, “Do not racially profile
us, we are Americans.” When we take such protests into the academic arena, we
see outlines of an already existing multiculturalist Comparative Literature, Area
Studies already urged to cross borders by Crossing Borders.’

One of the part of Spivak’s proposals is ‘Area Studies’, which has been got much
emphasize to be treated as a part of discipline. Her conception of Crossing Borders actually
values this ‘Area Studies’. ‘Identity politics is neither smart nor good. Comparative Literature
laced with Area Studies goes rather toward the other.’ (Spivak, Death of a Discipline, 2003,
pp. 84-92) Spivak’s works are very much influenced by Jacques Derrida. In the whole book,
she mentioned a lot about Derrida and no doubt her notion of ‘deconstruction’ towards western
centrism with the application of feminism and post-colonialism have been complementing to
Derrida’s thinking pattern. She said, on Crossing Borders (Spivak, Death of a Discipline, 2003,
p. 16):

‘As far as I am concerned, then, there is nothing necessarily new about the new
Comparative Literature. Nonetheless, I must acknowledge that the times
determine how the necessary vision of comparativity” will play out.
Comparative Literature must always cross borders. And crossing borders, as
Derrida never ceases reminding us via Kant, is a problematic affair.’

Spivak’ Crossing Borders, Collectiveness and Planetarity basically seems to be a

continuous process which follow an order of happening one after one. After asking
Comparative Literature to cross border from the Euro-US centralization through cultural
studies, she shows the discipline to go towards collectivity. And She says (Spivak, Death of a
Discipline, 2003, p. 27): “In order to assume culture we must assume collectivity. Yet usually
we assume collectivity on the basis of culture. This move can be called by many names.” Her
central issue of this collectivity is women and feminism. Thus, she says (Spivak, Death of a
Discipline, 2003, p. 70): “Why have I written largely of women to launch the question of the
recognition of ceaselessly shifting collectivities in our disciplinary practice? Because women
IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 1012

are not a special case, but can represent the human, with the asymmetries attendant upon any
such representation. As simple as that.”

Towards Planetarity, which she used as a synonym of ‘humanism’, she pointed out how
new thoughts of comparative literature can make way for the new immigrants, diasporas in the
discipline. She says (Spivak, Death of a Discipline, 2003, pp. 85-87):

‘… the new Comparative Literature will touch the older minorities: African,
Asian, Hispanic. It will take in its sweep the new postcoloniality of the post-
Soviet sector and the special place of Islam in today’s breaking world. Not
everything for everyone, all at once. … It is with this ensemble that the divided
and diversified story of Asian America, old and new immigrants, must be
imaginatively cobbled to make for a robust Comparative Literature. The time
for producing historically thin “theory” describing the feeling of migrants in
pseudopsychoanalytic vocabulary is over. …. The old postcolonial model—
very much “India” plus the Sartrian “Fanon”—will not serve now as the master
model for transnational to global cultural studies on the way to planetarity. We
are dealing with heterogeneity on a different scale and related to imperialisms
on another model. …. The range and diversity of the Islamic diaspora is
immense. It is altogether appropriate that Comparative Literature should undo
the politically monolithized view of Islam that rules the globe today, without
compromising the strong unifying ideology potentially alive in that particular
cultural formation.’

Spivak’s proposal on the discipline of ‘dying’ Comparative Literature is thought

provoking. The ‘new Comparative Literature’ she wants to see is basis on her those three
points, which accept number of potential new formations of knowledge to the course. What
Spikak is really referring, Comparative Literature has to change its whole thinking pattern of
the old version. Only then, it would make contribution to form the cultural identity.
IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 1013

Conclusion

While starting, the ‘othering’ process of cultural identity was showing vividly and quite
clearly by those two quotations. The point is, how to dissolve this ‘other’ within this identity
crisis. But the biggest crisis is, as Spivak says, the understanding of comparative literature of
its own self. In the new crisis of cultural identity and with the multiethnic, multicultural,
multinational, multidisciplinary situation; in the new perspective of new migration and
diaspora situation of the world, with new urgency of cross-culture reality, how it revoke its
own oldness and response to the new narratives Comparative Literature discipline has to find
its answer. If it gets resolved, Bakhtin is there to melting Comparative Literature towards the
formation of cultural identity. With old school of so-called ‘comparative literature’, cultural
identity is very tough to form as a branch of knowledge. But, one thing that this paper finds
with the view point of Bakhtin and Spivak, that they both questioned the West-centric
hegemony and East-excluding cultural study of Comparative Literature with a view to find a
broader new way towards Cultural Identity.
IJELLH Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2019 1014

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