SCHOLAR-ART-IVIST
Books
Siren Song:
Understanding Pakistan Through its Women Singers
Oxford University Press, February 2019
"Fawzia Afzal-Khan’s book is an important and timely feminist intervention in the study of classical music and a cogent challenge to the prevailing anti-secular orthodoxy in the academy. In this complex and sensitive study…of the careers of artistes like Malka Pukhraj, Roshanara Begum, Reshma, and of the newer music and musical space offered by Coke Studio, Afzal-Khan shows us the multiple ways in which women performers negotiated and continue to negotiate their way through the numerous challenges thrown their way in the wake of the partitioning of the subcontinent and the multiple demands placed on them."
– Janaki Bakhle, Associate Professor, Department of History, UC Berkeley
"This book joins a small number of excellent cultural and critical studies of the performance arts in South Asia by looking closely at some of the great women singers of Pakistan… It should be read by all scholars working at the intersections of critical feminist studies, music and performance studies, and postcolonial studies."
– Arjun Appadurai, Professor, NYU Steinhardt School of Culture
"Fawzia Afzal-Khan’s book provides an opening into an important area of study since Pakistan is rich in creative articulations by women…. Her passionate engagement calls to the reader to look inward through song, avoiding clichés about oppressed Muslim women."
– Nighat Said Khan, Director of Applied Socio-Economic Research Center (ASR) & the Institute of Women’s Studies, Lahore
Select Reviews & Ancillary Publications/Conversations:
Review by Feriyal Amal Aslam, The Drama Review
Review by Areej Jawad and Namra Najam, Asiatic
Review by Shoba Sharad Rajgopal, South Asian Review
Review by Shreerekha Pillai Subramanian, Feminist Media Studies
Review by Naila Sahar, The Aleph Review
Review by Taimur Rehman, Journal of International Women's Studies
Review by Nyla Ali Khan, Daily Times
Review by Qaisar Abbas, The Friday Times
Review by Mahnoor Fatima, Youlin Magazine
Podcast Interview with Alka Kurian
Conversation about Siren Song between Fawzia Afzal-Khan, Dr Amina Yaqin, Dr Taimur Rehman, Dr Naila Sahar, and Raza Rumi, Naya Daur TV
Siren Song: Understanding Pakistan Through its Women Singers is available here
Review by Dr. Shazia Malik, Greater Kashmir, & Kashmir Lit
Review by Faiza Farid, The Friday Times
Video of book lauch at Karachi Literary Festival
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Select Reviews & Ancillary Publications:
Cluster on Lahore, with Love
“My place is now also a place where I manipulate my Muslim womanhood to make my way up the U.S. academic ladder, reporting to increased acclaim the dire situation of Muslim women of Pakistan. My place is now a paradox of no-place, my home is now abroad, I have become exotic to myself, a stranger to my own (s)kin.”
Subverting Patriarchy Through Écriture Feminine in Fawzia Afzal-Khan's Lahore with Love: Growing Up with Girlfriends, Pakistani-style
Article by Shirin Zubair & Rija Ahsan, published in Pakistan Journal of Women’s Studies: Alam-e-Niswan
PDF available here
Review of Lahore With Love: Growing Up with Girlfriends Pakistani Style
by Mandy Van Deven
Chay Magazine
Read review published in The Nation here
Lahore with Love: Growing Up with Girlfriends, Pakistani-style is available here
MLA Convention, 2014
Lahore with Love:
Growing Up with Girlfriends, Pakistani-style
Syracuse University Press, Spring 2010
Rep. Insanity Ink Publications, January 2011
"Fawzia Afzal-Khan's memoir of childhood in Pakistan weaves together memory and desire to create a tale that is marvelously compelling and endlessly entertaining, at once poignantly personal and richly political."
– Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University
"She is a gifted dissident voice and I hope many people will read her beautiful memoir which challenges stereotypes, universal fanatic fundamentalism and religious, political, and sexual taboos."
– Nawal El Saadawi, author of Woman at Point Zero"
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Shattering the Stereotypes:
Muslim Women Speak Out
Editor
Interlink Books, Spring 2005
"This is an important book because it helps the reader understand how the term 'Islam' is being bandied about to cover up, rather than to reveal, the truth of the global injustices that have created a culture of violence on this precious earth. I salute these women for their courage!"
– From the foreword by Nawal el-Saadawi
Shattering the Stereotypes: An Interview with Fawzia Afzal-Khan
By Nilanshu Kumar Agarwal
PAKISTANIAAT
A Journal of Pakistan Studies
PDF available here
Select Reviews:
Maria Golia, “Variants of Abuse,” Times Literary Supplement, February 11, 2007
Sally Bland, “Replacing Misconceptions with Life-Saving Knowledge,” Jordan Times, Fall 2005
Zohreh Ghavamshahedi, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, Volume 2, Number 3, Pages 112 – 113, Fall 2006
Shattering the Stereotypes: Muslim Women Speak Out is available here
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A Critical Stage:
The Role of Secular Alternative Theatre in Pakistan
Seagull Press, India, Spring 2005
"Fawzia Afzal Khan sets out to map the development of alternative theatre, an aspect of creative articulation that has so far been ignored by those aiming to study the social and cultural history of Pakistan."
– From Furrukh Khan's review of A Critical Stage: The Role of Secular Alternative Theatre in Pakistan, published in the Feminist Review
Review available to read here
Select Additional Reviews:
Girish Karnad, The Book Review, New Delhi, May 2006
Aparna Dharwadker, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Volume 26, 2006
Rashid Ali, “Praxis of Performance,” Biblio, May - June 2005
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The Pre-Occupation of Postcolonial Studies
Co-editor with Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks
Duke University Press, Fall 2000
“A timely intervention in the debates surrounding the contribution made by postcolonial theory and the status of the discipline indicated by the term ‘postcolonial.’ This anthology enables a broadening and deepening of the field.”
— Sangeeta Ray, author of En-Gendering India: Woman and Nation in Colonial and Postcolonial Narratives
“A diverse collection that effectively constitutes a reader for contemporary postcolonial studies . . . .”
— Fred W. Burnett , Religious Studies Review
"[A] welcome intervention providing significant vignettes on the historical trajectory of the field as well as its contemporary concerns. . . . It will serve as a comprehensive reader for entrants to the field, without disappointing experts whose urge for nuanced analysis and detailed argumentation will also be amply satisfied."
— Manish Kumar Thankur , Anthropology Review Database
Select Additional Reviews:
Huda Seif, Cross-Cultural Poetics, Number 8, May 2001
Doug Payne, College Literature, Vol. 29, No. 3, Summer, 2002, pp. 159-169
The Pre-Occupation of Postcolonial Studies is available here
Cultural Imperialism and the Indo-English Novel
Pennsylvania State University Press, Fall 1993
"Fawzia Afzal-Khan's excellent book could stand as a reply to those hostile critics who today attack 'multiculturalism' for reductively politicizing literature. In her trenchant discussion, Afzal-Khan shows just how complex the politics of 'liberation' can be for colonial and postcolonial novelists."
– Gerald Graff, University of Chicago
"Afzal-Khan's study is a major new contribution to the related fields of Indian writing in English and post-colonial literatures. Focused primarily on four Indian novelists, its arguments and conclusions are of vital importance to our understanding of the many new literatures from the former British colonies. Through her judicious use of the theoretical constructs of Frantz Fanon, Fredric Jameson, Edward Said, and others,
Afzal-Khan has produced a fresh and compelling interpretation of the Indian-English novel."
–Amritjit Singh, Rhode Island College
Cultural Imperialism and the Indo-English Novel is available here