{"id":{"repo_id":"massey","oai_identifier":"oai:mro.massey.ac.nz:10179/16100"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/massey/oai:mro.massey.ac.nz:10179/16100","repository":{"repo_id":"massey","name":"Massey University","base_url":"https://mro.massey.ac.nz/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Imposed silences, subversive voices : (re)reading selected Pakistani Anglophone writing through the bodies of Pakistani-Muslim women : a dissertation presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand","abstract":"This dissertation is a personal and political act of resistance. Through a centralisation of the female body as an analytical construct, my research offers a feminist intervention to discussions about contemporary Pakistani Anglophone writing thereby challenging the often overtly political and nation-driven attention these texts have received. My analysis focuses on the inscription and framing of the bodies of Pakistani-Muslim women in Mohsin Hamid’s Moth Smoke (2000), Kamila Shamsie’s Broken Verses (2005) and Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers (2004). A central claim in this dissertation is that these novels complicate and challenge (if not always deconstruct) popular discourses which define Pakistani-Muslim women in essentialist terms as a homogenous group of passive and voiceless victims of male oppression or of a misogynist religion. Instead, I argue that the female bodies represented in the novels occupy a broader range of positions. While some are “silent” victims, others are highly subversive civic subjects and individuals. The novels portray historically and culturally-specific materialisations of womanhood, born out of a complex interplay between the discourses of religion, politics, desire and sexuality. I also claim that these novels address and write back to both indigenous and global actors. They engage and disrupt neo-Orientalist discourses of Muslim and feminist exceptionalism. At the same time, these novels question the privatisation and domestication of Pakistani-Muslim female bodies in local nationalist and religious discourses. While many of the female characters in these novels resist appropriation in (masculine) discourses of nationhood and religion, I nonetheless observe a problematic tendency to portray motherhood, and the maternal body, in ambivalent or even negative terms. I note, too that the implied audience of these novels is a global readership and/or a globalised elite, English-reading audience within Pakistan. In addressing this readership, these novels risk ignoring or even silencing the voices, issues, concerns and aspirations of a local population that is non-cosmopolitan, non-transnational and regional. Despite their challenges to monolithic assumptions about Pakistani women, then, the notion of agency attributed to the female subjectivities in the texts I have considered seems to be refracted through a neo-liberal lens which equates modernity/progress with individualism and secularism.","abstract_html":"This dissertation is a personal and political act of resistance. Through a centralisation of the female body as an analytical construct, my research offers a feminist intervention to discussions about contemporary Pakistani Anglophone writing thereby challenging the often overtly political and nation-driven attention these texts have received. My analysis focuses on the inscription and framing of the bodies of Pakistani-Muslim women in Mohsin Hamid’s Moth Smoke (2000), Kamila Shamsie’s Broken Verses (2005) and Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers (2004). A central claim in this dissertation is that these novels complicate and challenge (if not always deconstruct) popular discourses which define Pakistani-Muslim women in essentialist terms as a homogenous group of passive and voiceless victims of male oppression or of a misogynist religion. Instead, I argue that the female bodies represented in the novels occupy a broader range of positions. While some are “silent” victims, others are highly subversive civic subjects and individuals. The novels portray historically and culturally-specific materialisations of womanhood, born out of a complex interplay between the discourses of religion, politics, desire and sexuality. I also claim that these novels address and write back to both indigenous and global actors. They engage and disrupt neo-Orientalist discourses of Muslim and feminist exceptionalism. At the same time, these novels question the privatisation and domestication of Pakistani-Muslim female bodies in local nationalist and religious discourses. While many of the female characters in these novels resist appropriation in (masculine) discourses of nationhood and religion, I nonetheless observe a problematic tendency to portray motherhood, and the maternal body, in ambivalent or even negative terms. I note, too that the implied audience of these novels is a global readership and/or a globalised elite, English-reading audience within Pakistan. In addressing this readership, these novels risk ignoring or even silencing the voices, issues, concerns and aspirations of a local population that is non-cosmopolitan, non-transnational and regional. Despite their challenges to monolithic assumptions about Pakistani women, then, the notion of agency attributed to the female subjectivities in the texts I have considered seems to be refracted through a neo-liberal lens which equates modernity/progress with individualism and secularism.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Salam, Shazrah"],"institution":null,"degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2019,"date_issued":"2019","date_published":"2019","updated_at":"2026-07-27T20:17:35Z","subjects":[],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["hdl:10179/16100"],"render_values":[{"text":"hdl:10179/16100","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":null,"outbound_label":null,"outbound_source":null},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2019"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["hdl:10179/16100"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.other","label":"Dc Description Other","values":["This dissertation is a personal and political act of resistance. Through a centralisation of the female body as an analytical construct, my research offers a feminist intervention to discussions about contemporary Pakistani Anglophone writing thereby challenging the often overtly political and nation-driven attention these texts have received. My analysis focuses on the inscription and framing of the bodies of Pakistani-Muslim women in Mohsin Hamid’s Moth Smoke (2000), Kamila Shamsie’s Broken Verses (2005) and Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers (2004). A central claim in this dissertation is that these novels complicate and challenge (if not always deconstruct) popular discourses which define Pakistani-Muslim women in essentialist terms as a homogenous group of passive and voiceless victims of male oppression or of a misogynist religion. Instead, I argue that the female bodies represented in the novels occupy a broader range of positions. While some are “silent” victims, others are highly subversive civic subjects and individuals. The novels portray historically and culturally-specific materialisations of womanhood, born out of a complex interplay between the discourses of religion, politics, desire and sexuality. I also claim that these novels address and write back to both indigenous and global actors. They engage and disrupt neo-Orientalist discourses of Muslim and feminist exceptionalism. At the same time, these novels question the privatisation and domestication of Pakistani-Muslim female bodies in local nationalist and religious discourses. While many of the female characters in these novels resist appropriation in (masculine) discourses of nationhood and religion, I nonetheless observe a problematic tendency to portray motherhood, and the maternal body, in ambivalent or even negative terms. I note, too that the implied audience of these novels is a global readership and/or a globalised elite, English-reading audience within Pakistan. In addressing this readership, these novels risk ignoring or even silencing the voices, issues, concerns and aspirations of a local population that is non-cosmopolitan, non-transnational and regional. Despite their challenges to monolithic assumptions about Pakistani women, then, the notion of agency attributed to the female subjectivities in the texts I have considered seems to be refracted through a neo-liberal lens which equates modernity/progress with individualism and secularism."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Imposed silences, subversive voices : (re)reading selected Pakistani Anglophone writing through the bodies of Pakistani-Muslim women : a dissertation presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:date.issued":["2019"],"dc:description.other":["This dissertation is a personal and political act of resistance. Through a centralisation of the female body as an analytical construct, my research offers a feminist intervention to discussions about contemporary Pakistani Anglophone writing thereby challenging the often overtly political and nation-driven attention these texts have received. My analysis focuses on the inscription and framing of the bodies of Pakistani-Muslim women in Mohsin Hamid’s Moth Smoke (2000), Kamila Shamsie’s Broken Verses (2005) and Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers (2004). A central claim in this dissertation is that these novels complicate and challenge (if not always deconstruct) popular discourses which define Pakistani-Muslim women in essentialist terms as a homogenous group of passive and voiceless victims of male oppression or of a misogynist religion. Instead, I argue that the female bodies represented in the novels occupy a broader range of positions. While some are “silent” victims, others are highly subversive civic subjects and individuals. The novels portray historically and culturally-specific materialisations of womanhood, born out of a complex interplay between the discourses of religion, politics, desire and sexuality. I also claim that these novels address and write back to both indigenous and global actors. They engage and disrupt neo-Orientalist discourses of Muslim and feminist exceptionalism. At the same time, these novels question the privatisation and domestication of Pakistani-Muslim female bodies in local nationalist and religious discourses. While many of the female characters in these novels resist appropriation in (masculine) discourses of nationhood and religion, I nonetheless observe a problematic tendency to portray motherhood, and the maternal body, in ambivalent or even negative terms. I note, too that the implied audience of these novels is a global readership and/or a globalised elite, English-reading audience within Pakistan. In addressing this readership, these novels risk ignoring or even silencing the voices, issues, concerns and aspirations of a local population that is non-cosmopolitan, non-transnational and regional. Despite their challenges to monolithic assumptions about Pakistani women, then, the notion of agency attributed to the female subjectivities in the texts I have considered seems to be refracted through a neo-liberal lens which equates modernity/progress with individualism and secularism."],"dc:identifier":["hdl:10179/16100"],"dc:title":["Imposed silences, subversive voices : (re)reading selected Pakistani Anglophone writing through the bodies of Pakistani-Muslim women : a dissertation presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand"],"dc:type":["Thesis"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-27T20:17:35Z"}