Fighting the Impulse to Save the “Other”: A Feminist Methodologies Graduate Seminar Syllabus

What brings graduate students to feminist theories and feminist methodologies? In this essay, the author argues that graduate students are led by similar “feminist impulses” that many of us have in the field of feminist studies, whereby we are searching for ways to disrupt the status quo and the political and ethical terrain of the academy by doing “feminist” research. In a response to this feminist impulse, the author offers an example of their graduate seminar on Feminist Methodologies that is centered around Gayatri Spivak’s legendary essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” By using Spivak’s provocative essay, in all of its (mis)readings, the author argues that Spivak’s essay and the controversies around it provide a perfect springboard for a graduate seminar on feminist methods. By centering Spivak’s essay, the course forces students to consider what is at stake and what we are hoping to accomplish on the backs of our research (subjects). The questions at the heart of Spivak’s essay are the questions at the heart of feminist methodology itself: who do we think we are when we attempt to do feminist research, what brings us to this work, and what does any potential savior complex have to do with it?