Muslim Textualities: A Literary Approach to Feminism

Description

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, Muslim women writers located in Europe and American entered the cultural mainstream. Literary and visual productions negotiated static visual emblems of Islam, most prominently the veil. They did so not by rejecting veiling practices, but by adapting Muslim resources, concepts and visual tradition to empowerment narratives in popular media. Mainstream reception of their works has often overlooked or misread these negotiations. Muslim Textualities argues for more flexible and capacious interpretation, with particular attention to visibility as a metaphor for political agency and to knowledge of cultural contexts. This provocative volume aims to articulate Muslim female agency through clear and accessible analysis of the theory and concepts driving the interpretation of these works. Scholars interested in the working representations of Muslim women, feminist subjectivities, and the complexities of gender roles, patriarchy, and feminism will find this volume of particular interest. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Notes Chapter 1: Sex and Other Cities: Abjected Age, Abandoned Flesh Chick-Lit and Lit-Crit: Legacies of Romance White and Velvet Weddings Location, Location, Location Global Girls Notes Chapter 2: Female Masochism and Textual Masquerade in Monica Ali’s Brick Lane and Untold Story Literary Pop, Migrant Images Assemblage in Brick Lane Diana as Feminine Assemblage The Seamstress Resewn Notes Chapter 3: Muslimah Seeing America: Local Colors in Mohja Kahf’s The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf Indiana Doesn’t Want You Racial Sociogeny and the Semiotics of Sex-Gender Notes Chapter 4: Surface Violation: Parastou Forouhar’s Domestic Sublime “Commemorations”: Figure and Furnishing Figure and Book The Figure as Architecture Figuring Women Notes Chapter 5: The Mother Mark and Other Tongues in Nylon Road Figure and Design Mother Tongues and Other Mouths Fashion and Figuration Notes Chapter 6: Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index