muhammad abdullah

This study aims to shed light on the stereotypical gender identities presented in the online humor regarding Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Pakistan. To uncover gender stereotypes, Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis provided a theoretical background for this study. The data consisted of 42 posts from social media (Facebook and WhatsApp) that were collected through purposive quota sampling during the lockdown period in Pakistan. These posts were divided into twelve thematic categories. A culturematic content analysis of the posted jokes revealed that Corona related social media humor is unanimously dedicated to creating a face-threatening image of females, especially wives. This article argues that wives are being constructed as callous, impatient, and materialistic beings through corona joke-posts. The study provides an insight into how jokes are ascribing gender identities of women, especially wives in a destructive persona. Such consistent negative representation of identities may result in severe emotional and psychological effects on both genders and increased marital conflicts. The study suggests that there should be balanced and positive discourses on media and other institutions to foster positive attitudes towards gender and marital identities in Pakistani society in specific and the world over in general.

This article examines the dislocation of technology in Don DeLillo's The Silence: A Novel and argues that technology is rooted in postmodern culture and has clutched characters into its paws. The Silence: A Novel narrates the collapse of the current digital world to highlight the complex and challenging realities of the postmodern world. The digital apocalypse becomes a pivoting point of this study. The characters are the product of technological culture, and their actions depend upon the medium of technology. Furthermore, the invasion of technology into all aspects of life via the creation of numerous mirrors, such as digital equipment, leads to hyperreality. The only way to get out of this hyperreality is-the dislocation of technology from life, as DeLillo has experimented by shunning all digital connections. The purpose of doing digital silence is to bring humanity back and insert a sense of realisation among the future generation.

Keeping culture at the core, this study tries to establish the possibilities of connectivity between China and Pakistan on softer grounds along with economic activity. To elucidate these possibilities in depth, media and literature have been focused upon amongst a variety of cultural manifestations. By relying on methodological tools from semiotics and comparative literary studies, the data set is approached to trace the elements with shared cultural capital. One significant contribution of the study is that it highlights the cultural potential of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and suggests ways to promote collective cultural activity.

 The novel No Sex in the City by Randa Abdel-Fattah juxtaposes Islamic progressive and Western secular viewpoints on dating culture, relationships, sex, and marriage. The patterns of halal1dates are described in a light-hearted, yet meaningful tone. These are religio-culturally appropriate ways of approaching prospective life partners, where the agency of final decision, in most cases, is with the participants. Instead of being defensive or apologetic about Islamic traditions and values, Abdel-Fattah vocalizes them in a rational way through the lead lady, Esma. The protagonist, Esma, is an Australian Muslim with Turkish roots. Muslim diaspora in the West is in the middle of the continuum from liberalism to conservatism. Despite living in a non-Islamic culture, followers of Islamic ideology are connected through a shared culture driven by Islam. Faith-based practices are beyond any geographical bindings. So, for Muslims, wherever they may live, there are similarities in the way they ...

This paper presents a reading of contemporary Pakistani women"s fiction with a focus on their treatment of the subjects of sex and intimacy. The textual nuances have been thematically presented to situate the argument that Pakistani women writers celebrate the intimate aspects of their lives. Without being disloyal to religious and regional sensibilities, these women are creating and nurturing breathing spaces for them. The data for the study comprises the works of two contemporary Pakistani women writers Maha Khan Phillips" Beautiful from this Angle (2010), and Saba Imtiaz"s Karachi you"re Killing Me (2014). For the sake of conducting narrative analysis, this study relies on postfeminism as a conceptual framework and thematic categories representative of the chick literature genre as a method. The objective of the paper is to bring forth alternative voices depicting the lived realities of Pakistani women, as opposed to the essentialist understanding of Pakistani women.

All those desires, discriminations, success stories, confrontations that otherwise might not
have seeped in mainstream discourses are subtly said through the stories that mirror Arab
women’s lives. Girls of Riyadh is a postmodern cyber-fiction that delineates with the subjects
usually we do not get to hear much about i.e. the quest of heterosexual love and matrimony of
young Arab women from a lesser women friendly geography of Saudi Arabia. Though in last
two decades the scholarship on alternative discourses, producing Muslim women have been
multitudinous, yet there is a scarcity of critical investigations dealing with creative
constructions of postfeminist, empowered, Muslim woman, not battling with patriarchal
power structures, but negotiating aspects that matter most in real life: human associations and
familial formations. This paper engages with the categories of love, marriage, and sexuality
drawing upon the lives of four educated, successful, ‘velvet class’ Saudi women. The
significance of this study is linked with carefully challenging some of the stereotypes about
Arab women as victims of forced marriages and their commonly perceived discomfort with
love at large. The study reveals, it is men who need to man up against cultural conventions
since women are increasingly expressive in their choices and brave enough to face the
consequences audaciously.

The novel No Sex in the City by Randa Abdel-Fattah juxtaposes Islamic progressive and Western secular viewpoints on dating culture, relationships, sex, and marriage. The patterns of halal dates are described in a light-hearted, yet meaningful tone. These are religio-culturally appropriate ways of approaching prospective life partners, where the agency of final decision, in most cases, is with the participants. Instead of being defensive or apologetic about Islamic traditions and values, Abdel-Fattah vocalizes them in a rational way through the lead lady Esma. The protagonist, Esma, is an Australian Muslim with Turkish roots. Muslim diaspora in the West is in the middle of the continuum from liberalism to conservatism. Despite living in a non-Islamic culture, followers of Islamic ideology are connected through a shared culture driven by Islam. Faith based practices are beyond any geographical bindings. So, Muslims wherever they may live, there are similarities in the way they conduct their lives. In fact, the blurring of boundaries between religious and cultural is minimal in diaspora Muslim communities. Abdel-Fattah has delicately balanced secular and religious in this work where freedom and right to exercise choice wins at the end. Pleasantly, these women possess sensual sensitivities and affectionate desires, but with Saudi/Islamic sensibilities that obligate them to tie the marriage knot before pursuing any physical pursuits. This in no way incapacitates them from loving men, rather appropriates the meaning of love in Islamic framework. The diversity of situations and respective choices made by these girls during the novel also allude to socio-cultural dynamics, patterns, and matrimonial preferences of Saudi women.

Feminism is a travelling concept that metamorphoses itself into target geographical, religious and cultural terrains. Owing to complex web of affiliations and influences, Pakistani feminism is a nexus of Islamic  feminism, post-colonial feminism and post-structuralist feminism. This multilayered complexity begins with Muslim feminism’s bifurcation into secular and religious feminisms. Secular stream adheres to Western notions of gender equality and female liberty whereas religious group proposes indigenous, religiously invoked version of female freedom. The concept of Islamic postfeminism, we suggest, challanges the notions that frame Muslim women as unhappy voicless victims of patriarchy in Islamic Pakistan. This study aims at examining the ways that re-orient their womanhood as it appears in contemporary anglophone writings of young women, hence recontextualizing postfeminism in a Pakistani context. In addition to theortically situating this merger, this paper draws upon postfeminist portrayals of female characters in Beautiful from This Angle by Maha Khan Phillips and Karachi You’re Killing me by Saba Imtiaz. It adumbrates how contemporary Pakistani fictionists are challenging the stereotypes of Asian-Islamic-femaleness through unconventional yet realistic, free and forward-looking portrayal of their female protagonists. The significance of this study is to create and promote alternative discourses of Pakistani feminism that define their expressions of freedom without dislocating them.

Feminism is alleged to have marginalized and objectified non Western, ethnic, religious, cultural and geographical communities. Women from these marginalized segments are now indigenising the movement to make the cause pluralistic, feminisms—representa-tion of women across the globe. Islamic feminism or/and Muslim feminism, not necessarily advocated by Muslims, is one of the feminist facets that enriches the concept of feminism by bringing to the fore Islam as a faith towards women liberation. This study engages with expression of femaleness, if not feminism, in Sudanese-Scottish fictionist Leila Aboulela's work— 'Minaret'. Aboulela's heroine, Najwa, reinvents herself from liberalism towards Islam. She does not set out to defend Islam from a Western perspective that has come to characterise popular narratives about identity and the clash of cultures in Britain. Instead, she relates to an inside experience of connecting with Islamic network of customs and beliefs for spiritual appease. The key concern of the study is to examine the way this transformation takes place—stimulus and modalities. At times her version of bondage with Islam justifies and reinforces patriarchy rather than combating it. In that, she appears to be standing on the wrong side of notion of gender egalitarianism in Islam. Incongruously, Anwar, the male protagonist emerges as a pro-feminist portraying liberal feminist values. The denouement is that we need to tolerate diversity of feminist cause within Islamic circles and beyond with a progressive spirit Resumen. Se alega que el feminismo ha marginalizado y objetivizado a las comunida-des no occidentales. Las mujeres desde estos segmentos marginalizados (étnicos, religiosos y culturales) ahora inician movimientos para convertir a la causa en plural con el fin de que los feminismos sean representados en todo el planeta. El feminismo islámico y/o feminismo musulmán, no necesariamente defendido por musulmanes, es una de las facetas feministas que enriquecen el concepto de feminismo, el cual presenta al islam como una fe que se dirige hacia la liberación de la mujer. Este estudio, entre otras cuestiones, se compromete con las expresiones de la feminidad y no con el feminismo.

This paper reports on a comprehensive study conducted in investigation of perceptions and practices of integrating an important aspect of  language teaching—culture—in Pakistani EFL classrooms. It involved both qualitative and quantitative investigation into the issue in order to understand the phenomenon in totality. The results revealed a highly positive attitude of teachers in favor of incorporating culture teaching along with language teaching, but at the same time the dominant opinion was to adapt language teaching materials in order to suit local
audiences.

Speakers Pakistan is an interesting country due to its sociocultural diversity and politically charged environment. There are stories everywhere, of marginalized communities, of oppression, resistance, rebellion, and triumph. In the recent history of this part of the world, partition of the subcontinent has left a signicant mark on the lives and memories of the people. All this diversity is an opportunity and a fertile ground to reap genuine stories of the land, its people, and their lives, which should be heard and archived as a heritage for generations to come. This paper reports on a pilot project of digital storytelling in which a group of students hailing from different parts of Pakistan were rst equipped with basics of documenting oral histories and then asked to share their content and experiences through social media. The thematic focus of the content assigned to these students was indigenous cultures and traditions. This session addresses the conference topic of 'civic engagement and social justice'. It emphasizes and demonstrates that how valuable it is to document local cultures and the role young students can play in it through simple digital tools and techniques. Especially, since 1990s, digital storytelling methods are becoming more and more accessible. Hence, there is a need to encourage and train more and more young people to adopt it as a way to, but not limited to, connect with their own cultures and people.

Cities have become representative of progress of human civilization. Since the emergence of the concept of space as a critical construct and spatial studies as a discipline, from 1960s onwards, it has established as an increasingly important notion in literary studies. The spatial turn has resulted in a lot of theoretical enrichment in realisation and application of this intervention. Literary spaces are not blueprints, but representations creating a mediatory world between real and imagined. They shape and get shaped by authorial experiences and readers' realisations-a bridge between fictional and factual. Relying on interdisciplinary framework from Bachelard's and Lefebvre's this paper studies how Lahore is painted by contemporary women writers within overall study of space. Lahore as a psychogeographic space is deeply dynamic; constantly being written and rewritten and getting augmented by each portrayal in its mysteries, liberties, anxieties, alienations, reactions, and innovations. The selected texts for this study include: This House of Clay and Water by Faiqa Mansab, Ashes, Wine and Dust by Kanza Javed, Goodbye Freddie Mercury by Nadia Akbar. In Mansab's work, through the lives of protagonists, one gets a bird's eye view love and desire and the politics of power in an ancient city that has seen it all and has a place for all. Javed through culture of Lahore highlights both, the positives as well as the negatives of the Pakistani society, beautifully capturing the local Lahori flavour in not only the tangible environment, but also in the social consciousness of the characters. Based on smart observations, Akbar treats city, Lahore as a character, where Lahore is depicted with powerful personality: the late night gatherings, the food, the sense of alienation, the demographics, and the politics.

Madrassahs and Islamic education system is a reality that cannot be ignored considering Pakistan's socio-religious setup. At the same time, there is a need of re-examination and modernisation of Madrassahs' infrastructure in order to bring reconciliation between Islamic ideology and progressive thought. Teaching of languages especially English language has a potential to help them connect with a global world and eventually reshape their world view. English in Indo-Pak has rich roots ranging from its introduction/induction during colonial India to recent nativised, Islamised, indigenous versions both in content and form. Despite all the socioeconomic advantages English language had to offer, resistance from religious orthodoxies, especially Muslims, in British India towards English has been a continuous characteristic that still seems to be prevailing in post-partition Pakistan. The Ulammas, not all, perceive teaching of English as a danger causing disturbance to social fabric of Islamic Pakistan. Most Madrassahs have no or very less explicit emphasis on English language teaching. To ensure inclusivity and to end with discrimination and patronising policies, it is important to value the main stakeholders i.e. Madrassah teachers. The present study aims at exploring perceptions and beliefs of Madrassah teachers and students regarding English language learning in Pakistan. It further reports on preliminary needs analysis derived out of Madrassah students and teachers' needs and wants in teaching and learning of English language. For this purpose, a questionnaire dealing with various practical, ideological, and cultural aspects of English language teaching was designed as a data gathering tool. The results show an ambivalent attitude of the teachers concerning the substance of English to survive in the current scenario in Pakistan. Majority of them value English language as an important element of 21 st century skill-set, but have concerns on its modalities in Madrassah classrooms, especially in terms of curriculum revision.

This paper aims at developing collective wisdom on streamlining/connecting feminist research in Pakistan with emerging trends in feminist scholarship: on a-hierarchical gender structures where empowerment of women is not based on disempowerment of men, redefining of female sexuality from sexual objectification to sexual subjectification, deconstructing retrosexism, negating totalising descriptions of women to more inclusive forms of representation from 'me-feminism' to 'we-feminism', acknowledging/addressing complexity of sexual orientations—presenting sex alongside gender as social, usefulness of language and gender research in creating a just social order and developing critical awareness about social practices, co-construction of the concept of men and masculinity, merging knowing as a woman/man and knowing as a feminist/gender activist, power feminism—3rd wave— celebrating freedom, combating/negotiating antifeminist tendencies as a backlash of hegemonic feminist ideology. The entire discussion would be framed in praxis oriented poststructuralist/discursive paradigm linking it with researcher's ongoing project on post-feminist turn in feminist flux.

Renegotiating the identity of Muslim Women: Texts and Contexts This session will be a conversation on how we need to problematize the identity of Muslim women, and not fall a victim to narratives that paint them, historically, and in recent times, as submissive concubines or burka clad extra-terrestrials. In the process, we will engage with contemporary facet of feminism, i.e., postfeminism in Muslim context. To substantiate our argument further, we will touch upon some of the texts that bring forth female protagonists who enjoy their bodily freedom, presumably a taboo terrain, and celebrate their sexuality. We could also talk about, if time permits, a recent controversy that sprang out of some 'provocative' slogans of Orat March (Women's March) on 8 th March 2020 in Pakistan; and politics of women rights in a Pakistani context.