Rahela Nayebzadah, PhD, Language and Literacy Education
Red Tears of Pearl: Making Space for Afghan-Canadian Muslim Diasporas In Postcolonial Literature.
Supervisor(s): Dr. Carl Leggo
Monday, June 4, 2018 | 4:00 PM | Graduate Student Centre, 6371 Crescent Road, Room 200
Rahela Nayebzadah will have her dissertation defence at 4:00 PM on Monday, June 4, 2018 in Room 200 of the Graduate Student Centre (6371 Crescent Road).
All are welcome to attend.
| Date: | Monday, June 4, 2018 |
| Time: | 4:00 PM |
| Location: | Graduate Student Centre (6371 Crescent Road), Room 200 |
Committee Members:
Dr. Carl Leggo (LLED)
Dr. Theresa Rogers (LLED)
Dr. Paul Matthew St. Pierre (SFU, English Department)
Examiners:
External examiner: Dr. Aparna Mishra Tarc (York University)
University examiners: Dr. Margot Filipenko and Dr. Peter Gouzouasis
Title:
“Red Tears of Pearl: Making Space for Afghan-Canadian Muslim Diasporas In Postcolonial Literature”
Abstract:
Fiction is powerful, shaping people’s minds. Most importantly, it is a powerful site for the construction of the Other and the projection of fantasies about women, ethnicity, and religion to consolidate the notion of the self. Representations of Muslims/Islam, in particular, contribute to how people view both the faith and its followers. Authors are demystifying and constructing “valid” notions of Muslims, simultaneously naturalizing, romanticizing, essentializing, and reducing them to homogenous entities. After 9/11, followers are over-exposed and over-determined in all forms of media (including fiction) as they are inscribed to stand as the West’s opposite; they are imaged and constructed so as to stress their need to be saved through colonization and civilization. Moreover, they are constructed and reconstructed as victims of their society, culture, and religion.
Written within a postcolonial framework and embodying the practices of a/r/tography, my novel titled Red Tears of Pearl speaks from the perspectives of Muslims as agents, which is
crucial to discourses of resistance within dominant representations because it raises questions about biases, presuppositions, and world-views on Muslims.
