Registered in Romantic depictions of imperial ruins is the endurance of empire in its immateriality: the imageries of empire’s ruination announce a future where imperial sovereignty maintains its presence spectrally. Using Jacques Derrida’s notion of hauntology, and recruiting further insight from political theory, this essay argues that emp…[Read more]

This article analyzes the case of Coke Studio Bangla’s music and performance production titled “Deora.”

Book review of Zia Haider Rahman’s novel In the Light of What We Know

Calling for a historiographical shift in literary criticism, this essay stresses the expansionist vision of the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire, approaches its literature as a corpus of representation for imperial subjectivities, and thereby supplements the critique of the narrative of literary modernity identified with the orientalist E. J. W.…[Read more]

Calling for a historiographical shift in literary criticism, this essay stresses the expansionist vision of the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire, approaches its literature as a corpus of representation for imperial subjectivities, and thereby supplements the critique of the narrative of literary modernity identified with the orientalist E. J. W.…[Read more]

Survey of the rise of sikolohiyang Pilipino (Filipino psychology) in the context of decolonization and indigenization movements in the Philippines in the last decades of the 20th century.

This is a revised 2023 version of a course was first taught at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in fall 2018. It addresses feminism, gender and sexuality studies, queer theory, and critical race and ethnic studies in conjunction with translation studies.

This paper aims to analyze the depiction of pedophilia in Humayun Ahmed’s film ‘Pleasure Boy Kômola.’ It concentrates on the social and psychological reasons for this rarely existing sexual practice or perversion and the oppressive consequences it causes on the subalterns in Bangladesh during the colonial period.

This article briefly explores the contemporary heterogeneous song-texts of Taskir Ali (popularly known as Baul Taskir) from Sunamgonj, in the district of Sylhet, Bangladesh. Bauls are nomadic communities in Bangladesh and West Bengal, India, and they express their profound spiritual philosophy and thoughts through their songs and performance.…[Read more]

In his writing, Cultural theorist Stuart Hall has often argued that an image or a set of images has the capability of condensing a number of attributes into a single picture, producing a misleading representation of what other people and cultures are like. As a result, multiple stories evolve into the one story that is told repeatedly and usually…[Read more]

Abstract of panel organized by the Sephardic Studies Discussion Group for the 2024 MLA Annual Convention.

The 2019 novel by the South African-Australian Nobel laureate, J M Coetzee, The Death of Jesus, is a third book in a sequence that includes Jesus in its title; like its predecessors it follows the lives of a recently constructed family in the dystopian Spanish-speaking towns of Novilla and Estrella. The surreal trilogy, which began with The…[Read more]

This article examines “The Nightmares of Carlos Fuentes,” the last of the fourteen stories that comprise Iraqi writer Hassan Blasimʼs collection The Corpse Exhibition. In “The Nightmares” Blasim is not concerned at all about depicting the reception of refugees in Europe. As evident in the title itself, what is central to the story is the psycholo…[Read more]

This article examines “The Nightmares of Carlos Fuentes,” the last of the fourteen stories that comprise Iraqi writer Hassan Blasimʼs collection The Corpse Exhibition. In “The Nightmares” Blasim is not concerned at all about depicting the reception of refugees in Europe. As evident in the title itself, what is central to the story is the psycholo…[Read more]

McDonagh is arguably one of the most celebrated yet most controversial of contemporary Anglo-Irish playwrights. His plays have received mixed reviews from critics and audiences alike, mostly for featuring graphic violence and obscene dialogues. Even though comedy is mostly seen as an inferior genre compared to tragedy, McDonagh, among many…[Read more]

The main objective of this article is to examine the representation of ʻhomelandʼ in three short stories by Caribbean-American writer Edwidge Danticat: “The Book of the Dead,” “Night Talkers,” and “The Gift.” All three stories represent Haitian migrants in the multi-cultural setting of the United States. A central theme that connects these stories…[Read more]

Abstract of my book chapter, published in Memory, Voice, and Identity
Muslim Women’s Writing from across the Middle East
Edited By Feroza Jussawalla, Doaa Omran

Abstract of my book chapter, published in Memory, Voice, and Identity
Muslim Women’s Writing from across the Middle East
Edited By Feroza Jussawalla, Doaa Omran

Solidarity between South Africa and Palestine has a long history, and often times, a comparison is drawn between the apartheid system in South Africa and the Israeli occupation and settler-colonial project in Palestine. In 1997, the late South African President, Nelson Mandela, said, “We know all too well that our freedom is incomplete without t…[Read more]