In contrast to various dominant representational themes through which Pakistan’s history is rendered intelligible to many (Islam, Muslim nationalism), this essay particularly focuses on a debate surrounding the question of morality (“pure or perverse literature”) connected to short stories on … Continue reading “Progressives and “Perverts”: Partition Stories and Pakistan's Future”
Issue: Issue 108
Masculinity in Crisis: Nasreen's Lajja and the Minority Man in Postcolonial South Asia
Debali Mookerjea-LeonardUsing exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen’s novel Lajja (Shame), this essay addresses questions of the articulation of a vulnerable masculinity in the political arena. It contends that in South Asia the field of sectarian politics has become the site for asserting masculinity … Continue reading “Masculinity in Crisis: Nasreen's Lajja and the Minority Man in Postcolonial South Asia”
Bio-Reproductive Futurism: Bare Life and the Pregnant Refugee in Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men
Heather LatimerThis article discusses Giorgio Agamben’s work on “bare life,” or life with no political meaning. It argues that there is a critical absence in Agamben’s work when it comes to women and gender, and it examines how the reproductive body complicates … Continue reading “Bio-Reproductive Futurism: Bare Life and the Pregnant Refugee in Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men”
Legal, Tender: The Genealogical Economy of Pride, Debt, and Origin
Angela MitropoulosThis essay queers the critique of political economy through the analytical category of the household, focusing on the centrality of genealogical orders to the persistence of capitalism over time and in frontier spaces. In so doing, it makes an argument … Continue reading “Legal, Tender: The Genealogical Economy of Pride, Debt, and Origin”
Archives of Empire: Seher Shah's Geometric Landscapes and the Spectacle of Force
Bakirathi ManiIn Geometric Landscapes and the Spectacle of Force, the Pakistani artist Seher Shah works with archival images of the 1903 Delhi Durbar and contemporary images of the U.S. “war on terror.” This essay examines how Shah’s digital print binds together theaters … Continue reading “Archives of Empire: Seher Shah's Geometric Landscapes and the Spectacle of Force”