Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Named 2025 Holberg Prize Laureate

The 2025 Holberg Prize Laureate is University Professor in the Humanities Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. The Holberg is one of the largest international research prizes (about $540,000) awarded annually for outstanding research in the humanities, social sciences, law, or theology. The prize is established and funded by the Norwegian Government, and administered by the University of Bergen, on behalf of the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research.

Spivak is considered one of today’s most influential global intellectuals, and she has shaped literary criticism and philosophy since the 1970s. She receives the prize for her groundbreaking, interdisciplinary research in comparative literature, translation, postcolonial studies, political philosophy, and feminist theory. She has authored nine books, and edited and translated many more. Her scholarship has been translated into more than 20 languages; she has also taught and lectured in over 50 countries.

Asked about the importance of the humanities as an academic field, Spivak stressed that the humanities must be supported because they teach the practice of learning rather than necessarily the production of knowledge. “No amount of merely being able to use knowledge as intellectual property can lead to a democratic and just society if we have not gone into training in the practice of learning,” she said. “This is to learn that what you approach is not only an object of knowing, but also a subject of learning.”

“Taking the core of Western thought as an object of critical analysis, Spivak has inspired, enabled, and supported otherwise inconceivable lines of critical interrogations—both at the centers and margins of global modernity,” said Holberg Committee Chair Heike Krieger.

A Focus on the Subaltern

Spivak’s main ethical and research focus has been on post-Hegelian philosophy, and the position of the subaltern—small social groups on the margins of history who cannot exercise their rights, and whose perspectives cannot be included in generalizations about the nation state. In particular, Spivak has focused on subaltern women, within both discursive practices and in cultural institutions.

She has challenged and expanded the boundaries of contemporary thought as a scholar and an activist. In addition to her scholarly work, Spivak has been teaching for the last 40 years in self-subsidized elementary schools among the so-called untouchables and the tribals in the poorest parts of India, as part of her efforts to combat the absence of democratic education in marginalized rural communities across several countries. Her activism and scholarship have also focused on poverty and development in Africa.

Through her work inside and outside academia, Spivak has been a great source of inspiration to young scholars, particularly, though not only, from the Global South. One of her best-known works, her seminal essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, has become a cornerstone of postcolonial subaltern studies. From a consideration of French high theory, the essay moves to the experience of widow-burning in colonial and pre-colonial India, and Spivak explores the ways in which subaltern resistance is not recognized within dominant discourses, challenging scholars to rethink their approaches to representation and voice.

Introducing Deconstruction to the English-Speaking World

Another significant contribution is her translation and critical introduction of Jacques Derrida’s Of Grammatology, which played a crucial role in introducing the philosophy of deconstruction to the English-speaking world—a way of analyzing texts and ideas by breaking down and examining the underlying assumptions, ideas, and frameworks that shape our understanding; and including a constructive suggestion within it. It is widely acknowledged that she has taken deconstructive practice in new directions.

Her latest book is Spivak Moving, a wide-ranging collection of her essays and lectures. She is working on a book about W. E. B. Du Bois, tentatively titled Globalizing Enslavement: My Brother Burghardt.

A member of the Columbia community since 1991, Spivak has held the post of University Professor in the Humanities at Columbia since 2007, where she is also a founding member of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. Spivak is a Corresponding Fellow at the British Academy, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as of the American Philosophical Society. She has received more than 50 faculty awards, and her many honors include the Kyoto Prize in Art and Philosophy, the Padma Bhushan, and the Modern Language Association Lifetime Scholarly Achievement Award. She holds 15 honorary doctorates from around the world.

“We are thrilled Professor Spivak has been recognized in this way for her lifelong commitment to advancing scholarship in the humanities and her impact across so many disciplines fundamental to our understanding of literature, society, and, indeed, the process of learning itself,” said Amy Hungerford, dean and executive vice president of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “Her research and academic achievements will continue to shape these fields and inspire new students and scholars alike for generations to come.”

Bruno Bosteels, dean of humanities and the Jesse and George Siegel Professor in the Humanities, also praised Spivak’s award. “Ever since I became an assistant professor and colleague of hers at Columbia more than 20 years ago, and even before, when, as a graduate student, I tried (in vain) to join her seminar on Jacques Derrida as an auditor, I have admired Professor Gayatri Spivak as a role model for what it means to read a text and engage in deep language learning and aesthetic imagination as the basis for a globally or planetarily engaged education. The Holberg Prize is testimony to her place as the one-of-a-kind scholar, teacher, and activist she has always been. I am honored to have her as a friend.”

The award will be conferred upon Professor Spivak during a formal ceremony at the University of Bergen in Norway on June 5.