Abstract

A sympathetic critique of the postmodern discourse of the other, this dissertation argues that though postmodern celebration of otherness and difference since the sixties is politically empowering and culturally enriching for marginalized groups, the fashionable critique of speaking for others is finally logically unsustainable and, if unchecked, will be politically irresponsible, intellectually stifling, and culturally suicidal. ;Chapter One examines the raison d'etre behind the postmodern critique of speaking for others. With the realization of how our subjectivities are shaped by the power-related dominant discourses which are often inaccessible to marginalized groups, the seemingly innocent problem of "speaking for others" becomes crucial in postmodern cultural politics. Postmodernity marks the rise of these hitherto voiceless others, who refuse to be spoken for any longer and demand to have their own voices heard. ;Chapter Two demonstrates how Michel Foucault, the primary voice in this critique of speaking for others, cannot but speak for others himself. In Madness and Civilization, Foucault, despite his ambition to let madness speak for itself, cannot avoid speaking for madness in the language of reason, which excludes madness in the first place. ;Besides criticizing identity politics--another important rationale behind the critique, Chapter Three also speaks out for misrepresentation and appropriation--two common practices in any cross-cultural exchanges. Not only the strong appropriate and misrepresent the weak but vice versa, as can be seen in the Chinese counterpart of Eurocentrism--Sinocentrism. Since not all practices of speaking for others are inherently repressive, each misrepresentation should be evaluated in its particular context. The often-overlooked positive value of misrepresentation can be seen in how Pound and Eisenstein creatively misrepresent and appropriate the Chinese written characters and how their works are in turn misprised creatively by Chinese poets and critics. This shuttle of cross-cultural misrepresentations is just one of the numerous testimonies to the fact that our civilization--East and West--thrives on all sorts of cross-cultural misrepresentations. Judged from this cross-cultural perspective, the postmodern critique of speaking for others become all the more fallacious