 The second quasi-canonical contribution to the field of post-colonial theory is Gayatri Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1988). Spivak works within Said’s problematic of representation but extends it to the contemporary academy. Spivak questions the idea of transparent subaltern speech. When well-meaning scholars want to let the subaltern “speak for themselves” they hope that removing the intermediary (the expert, the judge, the imperial administrator, the local elite) will enable some authentic truth based on experience to emerge. But experience itself is constituted through representation; therefore denying the problem of representation does not make it go away but only makes it harder to recognize. The central claim of the essay is that “representation has not withered away.” Since power is everywhere, even in language itself, transparency and authenticity are impossible; this means that the messy and controversial work of interpretation is necessary. 