Cosmopolitanism, Fundamentalism, and Empire: 9/11 Fiction and Film from Pakistan
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Cosmopolitanism, Fundamentalism, and Empire: 9/11 Fiction and Film from Pakistan and the Pakistani Diaspora DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Suhaan Kiran Mehta Graduate Program in English The Ohio State University 2013 Dissertation Committee: Pranav Jani, Advisor Sean O’Sullivan James Phelan Martin Joseph Ponce Copyright by Suhaan Kiran Mehta 2013 Abstract This dissertation argues that 9/11 Pakistani novels and films privilege cosmopolitan encounters by Muslim, and occasionally non-Muslim, characters that are in conflict with power and simultaneously reject those interactions that are complicit with it. I define cosmopolitan acts as those that do not merely celebrate but critically engage with foreign cultures and peoples at home and abroad. For the purpose of this project, I confine my analysis of power to the influence wielded by religious fundamentalists and political empires. To make my argument, I examine six Pakistani texts in which 9/11 is not merely a temporal marker but central to their ideological contexts and narrative strategies. These include the novel The Wasted Vigil by Nadeem Aslam, the film Khuda Kay Liye by Shoaib Mansoor, the novel Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie, the novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, the novel Home Boy by H.M. Naqvi, and the film The War Within by Joseph Castelo (co-authored by Ayad Akhtar and Tom Glynn). Pakistani novelists and filmmakers have acquired global visibility in the last decade, but their contribution to our understanding of 9/11 has not been sufficiently acknowledged. This project particularizes the recent turn in cosmopolitan theory to accord greater significance to religion in understanding global networks, as seen in the works of Jose Casanova, Craig Calhoun, Bryan S. Turner, and Miriam Cooke. I demonstrate how ii Pakistani writers and filmmakers represent a gamut of Muslim encounters with foreignness, which are often marked as heresy or dissent, without making facile claims about their transformational potential. On the contrary, this corpus of work shows keen awareness of the fragility of these connections forged alongside unspeakable acts of brutality. The turn towards religion in theories of cosmopolitanism is consistent with a new direction in which postcolonial studies is headed. In his 2012 article “Postcolonial Remains” published in New Literary History, Robert Young notes that postcolonial studies has not paid adequate attention to alternative communities and acts of resistance in religious contexts. In this project, I take Young’s suggestions forward by examining the multiple ways in which Muslim characters in 9/11 Pakistani literature and cinema forge ties with strangers at home and abroad despite facing opposition by Islamic fundamentalists and custodians of the American Empire. In chapter 1, I detail the antagonistic relationship between cosmopolitanism, Islamic fundamentalism, and the American empire as a framework to analyze 9/11 Pakistani works. The study of 9/11 Pakistani fiction and film also contributes to other ongoing debates in cosmopolitan theory. In chapter 2, I argue that a cosmopolitan worldview is not restricted but enabled through a critical consciousness of home. In chapter 3, I suggest that cosmopolitan links forged between characters in the Global South can be a threat to empire. In chapter 4, I examine the limits of empathy whereby characters reject a cosmopolitan worldview after being dehumanized by brutal acts of torture. iii Dedication To the memory of my grandparents, Mr. Jitubhai P. Mehta, Mr. Sitaram B. Kolpe, and Ms. Usha Kolpe. iv Acknowledgments This project would not have seen the light of day without the love and support of family, friends, and mentors. Thank you, mum, for keeping me grounded as I chose a career path that elicits amusement, dismay, and even horror in middle-class Indian families. Thanks to your practical view of life, I learned to live within my means on a graduate student stipend. I would not have come this far without your unconditional love. Thank you, dad, for encouraging me to pursue my dreams and for being an eternal optimist—at times excessively so. And thanks for all those English grammar lessons from Wren and Martin every Sunday morning. I feel extremely lucky to have a father whom I can call my best friend and who takes such keen interest in my work. Thank you, Professor Pranav Jani, for being an outstanding adviser and teaching me what it means to bear the burden of citizenship. Thank you, Professor James Phelan, for teaching me that conversations on how to read and how to write fiction are not mutually exclusive. Thank you, Professor Joe Ponce, for your sharp critiques of my arguments. I am grateful to you for agreeing to be part of my committee after I passed my candidacy. Thank you, Professor Sean O’Sullivan, for your valuable lessons in film criticism in class and during our marathon sessions in your office. Thank you all for v being such inspiring scholars and teachers and, above all, such patient and careful readers of my work. Thank you Professor Alan Hirvela, Professor Chadwick Allen, Dr. Eddie Singleton, Professor Frederick Aldama, Professor Jonathan Buehl, Professor Linda Mizejewski, Professor Luke Wilson, Dr. Matt Cariello, Professor Ryan Friedman, and the Sawyer group of faculty for your help at various stages in graduate school. Thank you, Paul McCormick, for giving me a home away from home. Your friendship and intellectual camaraderie are some of the best things that happened to me at Ohio State. Thank you, Anne Langendorfer, for being such a ray of sunshine and standing by me through thick and thin. Thank you, Jay Visaria, for great conversations on wide-ranging subjects which somehow always came back to India’s corruption scandals. Thanks, Karin Hooks, for all your help when I was going through a difficult time in my graduate career. Thanks, Kathleen Griffin, for your constant encouragement and being there when it mattered. Thank you, Leila Ben-Nasr, for your extraordinary kindness, warmth, and generosity. You are a gem of a human being. Thanks, Payal Mehta-Joshi, for “chai” sessions and walks on campus. And thank you, Swati Naphade, for dinners and “gappa goshtay” in “aapli Marathi.” Thank you Adam Stier, Brian McCallister, Hye Su Park, Jenny Paton, Kate Comer, Lindsay Martin, Lizzie Nixon, Matt Bolton, Nick Hetrick, Michelle Wang, Sarah Copland, and Wanlin Li for making potlucks at Professor Phelan’s so intellectually stimulating. Thank you USEPers Anne Jansen, Alex Jenkins, Blake Wilder, Brandon Manning, Chris Lewis, Tiffany Anderson, and Tiffany Salter for delightful conversations vi about “poco” literature and film. Thank you, Dr. John Vaughn, for keeping a straight face while addressing all my real and imaginary problems. Thank you, Dr. Jay Villella and Dr. Tyler Kelly, for teaching me the five essentials of “maximized living.” Thank you, Priya Sara Mathews, Tracy De souza, and Upal Basu Roy, for lending me a sympathetic ear during some of the roughest patches of my time here. And finally, I’d like to thank my extended family, friends, teachers, and students scattered all over the globe. It would take several hundred pages to convey how much all of you mean to me. There is simply too many of you. I have treasured every phone call, email exchange, and Skype conversation we’ve had these past five years. vii Vita 2002................................................................B.A. English Literature, St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai 2004................................................................M.A. English Literature, Mumbai University 2006................................................................M.A. English Literature, The Ohio State University 2008–2012 .....................................................Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of English, The Ohio State University January–May 2013 ........................................Graduate Administrative Associate, 2013-14 Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, The Ohio State University Fields of Study Major Field: English viii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Dedication .......................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments............................................................................................................... v Vita ................................................................................................................................... viii Chapter 1: Cosmopolitanism, Fundamentalism, and Empire ............................................. 1 Chapter 2: Sufi Mystics and Islamic Fundamentalists in Nadeem Aslam’s The Wasted Vigil and Shoaib Mansoor’s Khuda Kay Liye .............. 41 Chapter 3: The Global South and The American Empire in Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows and Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist .......................................................................................... 88 Chapter 4: Gangsta Rappers and Suicide Terrorists in H.M. Naqvi’s Home Boy and Joseph Castelo’s The War Within ............................... 132 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 164 References ......................................................................................................................