Binghamton University The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB) Graduate Dissertations and Theses Dissertations, Theses and Capstones 2016 The House in South Asian Muslim Women’s Early Anglophone Life-Writing And Novels Diviani Chaudhuri Binghamton University--SUNY, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://orb.binghamton.edu/dissertation_and_theses Part of the Comparative Literature Commons Recommended Citation Chaudhuri, Diviani, "The House in South Asian Muslim Women’s Early Anglophone Life-Writing And Novels" (2016). Graduate Dissertations and Theses. 13. https://orb.binghamton.edu/dissertation_and_theses/13 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations, Theses and Capstones at The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE HOUSE IN SOUTH ASIAN MUSLIM WOMEN’S EARLY ANGLOPHONE LIFE-WRITING AND NOVELS BY DIVIANI CHAUDHURI BA, Jadavpur University, 2008 MA, Binghamton University, 2010 DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature in the Graduate School of Binghamton University State University of New York 2016 © Copyright by Diviani Chaudhuri 2016 All Rights Reserved Accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature in the Graduate School of Binghamton University State University of New York 2016 April 25, 2016 Luiza Franco Moreira, Chair and Faculty Advisor Department of Comparative Literature, Binghamton University Monika Mehta, Member Department of English, Binghamton University Susan Strehle, Member Department of English, Binghamton University Kavita Panjabi, Outside Examiner Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University iii Abstract This dissertation undertakes the first sustained examination of representations of Islamicate material culture, domestic interiors, residential forms, and historic sites in the early Anglophone writing of South Asian Muslim women. Reading the memoirs of Pakistani diplomat Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah, From Purdah to Parliament (1963), in conjunction with three early Anglophone novels, namely, Zeenuth Futehally’s Zohra (1951), Mumtaz Shah Nawaz’s The Heart Divided (1957), and Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column (1961), I develop the analytic category of autoethnographic spatial discourse in contradistinction to the harem fantasy inflected colonial spatial discourse prevalent at the time in order to describe the representational practice of these twentieth century Muslim women authors, who by virtue of writing in English are compelled to serve as cultural translators. I argue that their writing positions them as cultural agents engaged in a curatorial intervention that brings the past, the built environment and cultural practices to bear on forms of remembering, and greatly influences the form of the early novel in India and Pakistan. The first chapter shows that the traditional residential form was crucial to Ikramullah’s self-fashioning as an exceptional member of the reconstituted postcolonial Muslim elite milieu of Pakistan. Ikramullah used her command over ceremonial and material culture to articulate a hybrid identity that incorporated the seemingly incommensurable inheritance of Islamicate cultural traditions and the learned codes of colonial modernity. The second chapter investigates why the novels escaped sustained scholarly attention when they first appeared, in what contexts they enjoyed renewed iv interest, and what this tells us about the field of literary history in South Asia. I argue that the current frames through which early novels in South Asia are viewed require some recalibration in order to accommodate discussions of Muslim women’s writing in English. The third and final chapter presents readings that suggest that while the private residence is conceptually monumentalised in Sunlight on a Broken Column, the autoethnographic spatial discourse in The Heart Divided and Zohra privatises monumental landscapes as sites of transgressive love, folding them within the domain of interiority and erotic excess. v Acknowledgements For a large part of my graduate career, I suffered from the obsessive need to research the antecedents of any idea or information that bore the most tangential relation to the topic of my dissertation. It seemed as though I would never be able to cover all the bases, and I was convinced that until one did that, one could not write with authority. However, I was lucky to have Professor Luiza Moreira as my advisor. In every meeting with her, I would unloose a deluge of facts, frameworks, and concepts I had beaten into the shape of claims, and Professor Moreira would unfailingly restate and organise them in more useful forms. This dissertation would never have been completed without her unflagging encouragement. At a crucial juncture, a discussion with Professor Kavita Panjabi helped streamline and pare down my project. Were it not for her, I would probably still be learning Urdu and Arabic, and trying to tackle all too many things at once without keeping the finish line in sight. My early classes with Professors Susan Strehle and Monika Mehta shaped the first iteration of this project, and they were both supportive when it took a different direction. For this, and for all the times they have generously allowed me to avail of their insights and practical advice, I am truly grateful. The incomparable cast of the PhD saga included many members of the Department of Comparative Literature at Binghamton. Our secretary Kathleen Stanley held the bureaucratic fort down and made sure I didn’t fall into a Kafkaesque nightmare of paperwork. Natalia Andrievskikh, Rania Said, Odie Santiago and Ida Roman were inspiring colleagues and housemates who showed me by example how to stick to a steady vi work ethic and chip away at overwhelming tasks little by little. They comforted me during crying jags, and, with Isabella To and Anastasiya Lyubas, and Sami Kharabsheh, filled the long cold winters and brief wondrous summers of Binghamton with warmth and laughter. Brendan Mahoney, Darwin Tsen, and Charlie Wesley helped demystify academia in the early days, often by coming up with hilarious but completely feasible titles for conference panels. I am grateful for their friendship, and the friendship of several members of the community of scholars at Binghamton, who rallied together to extend support throughout crises big and small. My parents both earned their PhDs while working full-time, and having me to deal with me besides. My mother, who suffered many hurdles during her PhD journey, made it look deceptively easy once she began writing, and her example, and constant enquiries about my progress, helped me plant my behind onto the chair and type up my findings. Conversations with Rehana Huq, aunt extraordinaire and patient soundboard, greatly influenced my conceptualisation of the project beyond the narrow confines of the dissertation. As did all the Uber drivers and chance companions on public transport who asked me what I did and received lengthy descriptions of the book I want this dissertation to one day become. vii Table of Contents Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 The Novels ...................................................................................................................... 4 Objects and Spaces ....................................................................................................... 12 Encountering the Small Voice of History ..................................................................... 21 Global Literary Cultures and Muslim Women ............................................................. 25 The Spectre of Partition ................................................................................................ 33 A Description of the Chapters ....................................................................................... 38 Chapter 1 The Ancestral House and Self-Fashioning: Autoethnographic Spatial Discourse ........................................................................................................................................... 42 Inheriting the Nation: Material Culture and Self-Fashioning ....................................... 46 Overwriting Colonial Spatial Discourse: Authorising Muslim Women’s Knowledges of Material Culture and Built Environment ...................................................................... 69 Harem Fantasy and Colonial Spatial Discourse: Travellers’ Tales, Ethnography and Autoethnography........................................................................................................... 77 Siting a Privileged and Exceptional Identity in the Traditional Residence .................. 93 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 115 Chapter 2 The Literary Landscape .................................................................................. 118 Early Anglophone Novels by Muslim Women and Contemporary Literary Histories ....................................................................................................................................