Chandra Talpade Mohanty

Chandra Talpade Mohanty (born 1955) is a postcolonial and transnational feminist theorist. As of 2013, she has served as the women's studies department chair and professor of Women's and Gender Studies, Sociology, and the Cultural Foundations of Education and Dean's Professor of the Humanities at Syracuse University.

Personal background

Chandra Talpade Mohanty was born in 1955, in Mumbai, India. While she was born and raised in India, she has spent time in Nigeria and London. In 2005, she became a US citizen.^[1]

In 1974, she graduated with honors and a Bachelor's degree in English from the University of Delhi in India. After graduation, she continued her education, earning a Master's degree in English in 1976. She attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, from where she earned a Master's degree in Education, specifically in teaching English in 1980. She continued her education in Illinois, earning a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1987. She is additionally the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate, Faculty of Social Sciences, Lund University Sweden, presented in 2008,^[2] and an Honorary Doctorate in humanities from the College of Wooster, Ohio, awarded in 2012.^[3]

Professional background

As of 2013, Mohanty has served as the women's studies department chair at Syracuse University. Earlier, she served as a professor of women's studies at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York.^[2] She became known after the publication of her 1984 essay, "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses",^[4] in which she states,

The relationship between 'Woman'—a cultural and ideological composite other constructed through diverse representational discourses (scientific, literary, juridical, linguistic, cinematic, etc.)—and 'women'—real, material subjects of their collective histories—is one of the central questions the practice of feminist scholarship seeks to address."^[5]

In this essay, Mohanty critiques the political project of Western feminism and its discursive construction of the category of the "Third World woman" as a homogenous entity. Mohanty states that Western feminisms have tended to gloss over the differences between Southern women, but that the experience of oppression is incredibly diverse, and contingent upon geography, history, and culture.^[5][6] Her paper was a seminal work, highlighting the difficulties faced by feminists from the Third World in being heard within the broader feminist movement, and it led to a "redefining of power relationships" between feminists within the First and Third worlds.^[4]

In 2003, Mohanty released her book Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. In this work, she argues for a bridging of theory and praxis, and the personal and the political. Major themes addressed include the politics of difference, transnational solidarity building, and anticapitalist struggle against neoliberal globalization. As well as reprinting "Under Western Eyes", in the final section, "Reorienting Feminism", Mohanty offers a response to criticism of the essay, and "reiterates her belief in the possibility, indeed necessity, of building common political projects between Third World and Western feminisms".^[7]

Selected publications

• Mohanty, Chandra Talpade; Russo, Anne; and Lourdes M. Torres (1991). Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, Indiana University Press, 338 pages. ISBN 978-0253206329
• Mohanty, Chandra Talpade; and M. Jacqui Alexander (1996). Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures, Routledge Press, 464 pages. ISBN 978-0415912112
• Mohanty, Chandra Talpade (2003). Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity, Duke University Press Books, 300 pages.. ISBN 978-0822330219
• Mohanty, Chandra Talpade; Riley, Robin L.; and Minnie Bruce Pratt (2008). Feminism and War: Confronting U.S. Imperialism, Zed Books, 280 pages. ISBN 978-1848130180

See Also

• Postcolonialism
• Postcolonial Feminism
• Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

References