Browsing by Author "Grewal, Sara"
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Item The ghazal as “world poetry”: between worlding and vernacularization(2022) Grewal, SaraWhile the ghazal has appeared in many linguistic traditions, its diversity is undermined by the imposition of a singular definition of this genre, which is further compounded by the overly simplistic identification of ghazal as lyric; these lyricized readings of the ghazal as both transhistorical and transnational rely on a discourse of “worlding” as an imperial project of cultural recovery and homogenization. In contrast, this article employs the methodology of historical poetics to argue via a reading of meta-ghazals in Persian, Urdu, and English that reading practices around the ghazal—including definitions of the genre that variously emphasize form versus theme—change according to the historical and geographical context of its circulation. However, by celebrating the ghazal’s travel as seemingly apolitical and/or ahistorical, the discourse of world poetry, particularly in the reception of the ghazals of Agha Shahid Ali, participates in an ongoing imperialism in world literary study. In contrast, we can read the ghazals of Adrienne Rich as exemplifying the tradition of vernacularization that has enabled the ghazal’s movement between languages, such that her work, like the work of historical poetics as a methodology, honors the history of the form’s travel through its appearance in contemporary American English.Item Guest editors’ introduction: “west-east” lyric: a comparative approach to lyric history(2020) Burney, Fatima; Grewal, SaraFor comparatists, the question of how to compare, or what constitutes the grounds of comparison, has defined the field since its inception; comparison as method seems to provoke a turn toward the self-reflexive for its practitioners, perhaps in an attempt to avoid the age-old problem of apples and oranges. This concern becomes further pronounced for those of us who work between traditions construed broadly as either 'Eastern' or 'Western', since the sense of shared roots in literary cultures either fades substantially, or provides painful reminders of the stark contrasts in power differentials between the two in the context of Western colonialism and its enduring effects since at least the sixteenth century. How, then, to compare? This question becomes marked once again for those of us who focus on poetry, which has been dominated by the discourse around a 'lyrical ideal" that eschews the 'real world' of politics and social realities in favour of a focus on the self, as well as on a particular 'lyric I' which functions as the site of an unproblematically universal vision of selfhood.Item Hip hop and the university: the epistemologies of “street knowledge” and “book knowledge”(2020) Grewal, SaraWhile hip hop and the university appear to operate within radically different social (and socioeconomic) spheres, we nevertheless see increasing overlap between the two that demonstrates a mutual interest and perhaps desire between the two. With the rise of hip hop studies on the one hand and a remarkable array of hip hop songs and films that address the university space and/or university education on the other, these two discursive spheres produce knowledges that are both complementary and contradictory. By analyzing several texts—major academic works of hip hop scholarship; films on hip hop and the university, especially Method Man and Redman’s 2001 How High; and the rap oeuvres of Kanye West and J. Cole—this article examines the ways in which the epistemologies of hip hop and the university interact and conflict. By examining these texts, I show that academic epistemologies, or what I term “book knowledge,” inadvertently impose a hierarchical and colonizing frame on rap and hip hop, such as the practice of “close reading” rap as poetry. Instead, I argue that we can learn how to ethically inhabit and transform the university space by drawing from hip hop’s commitment to producing the radical, decolonial, and embodied practices of “street knowledge.”Item Intra- and interlingual translation in Blackamerican Muslim hip hop(2013) Grewal, SaraThe article explores elements of protest against white supremacy in Blackamerican Muslim hip hop music. Emphasis is given to the author's idea of intralingual translation between Hip Hop National Language and White Mainstream English in the music of artists such as Mos Def and Lupe Fiasco. Other topics include the role of scholarship in interpreting hip hop, the multiplicity of the English language, and the use of Arabic words and references to the Qur'an.Item The politics of gender in Azeri-Russophone literature(2020) Seyidova, Leyla; Grewal, SaraSevinc Jafar’s novel Fakhriya (2018), first written in Russian and then translated by Javid Abbasov to Azeri, focuses on one Azeri woman’s experience during the Karabakh war (late 1980s-1994). The Karabakh war was an ethnic and territorial conflict in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in southwestern Azerbaijan, between the majority ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh (backed by Armenia) and the Republic of Azerbaijan. During the Karabakh war, Armenian troops demonstrated horrific brutality, especially towards women, whom they brutally and sometimes publicly sexually assaulted (Isgandarova 176). In my thesis, I will argue that despite the cultural hegemony under Russian colonialism, women in Azerbaijan used the discourse of colonial modernity to transcend traditional gender roles. I will explore the ways in which colonial language politics implicitly inform constructions of gender in Soviet and independent Azerbaijan; indeed, the fact that Jafar’s work was written in Russian suggests that it remains the language of modernity in Azerbaijan. As I will show, Jafar uses Russian to express women’s experiences of sexual violence during the Karabakh war beyond the gender roles that dictate the limits of appropriate speech in Azeri.Item The politics of gender in Azeri-Russophone literature(2020) Seyidova, Leyla; Grewal, SaraSevinc Jafar’s novel Fakhriya (2018), first written in Russian and then translated by Javid Abbasov to Azeri, focuses on one Azeri woman’s experience during the Karabakh war (late 1980s-1994). The Karabakh war was an ethnic and territorial conflict in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in southwestern Azerbaijan, between the majority ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh (backed by Armenia) and the Republic of Azerbaijan. During the Karabakh war, Armenian troops demonstrated horrific brutality, especially towards women, whom they brutally and sometimes publicly sexually assaulted (Isgandarova 176). In my thesis, I will argue that despite the cultural hegemony under Russian colonialism, women in Azerbaijan used the discourse of colonial modernity to transcend traditional gender roles. I will explore the ways in which colonial language politics implicitly inform constructions of gender in Soviet and independent Azerbaijan; indeed, the fact that Jafar’s work was written in Russian suggests that it remains the language of modernity in Azerbaijan. As I will show, Jafar uses Russian to express women’s experiences of sexual violence during the Karabakh war beyond the gender roles that dictate the limits of appropriate speech in Azeri.Item Testimony and the Urdu troposphere in Manto's 'Khol Do'(2019) Grewal, SaraWhile scholars of Partition frequently reference witnessing as a necessary frame for understanding Partition literature, and particularly the work of Saadat Hasan Manto, I analyse Manto’s short story ‘Khol Do’ (‘Open It’) to argue that the text’s use of Urdu-inflected tropology both deploys and exceeds the discourse of testimony. Through its turn toward magical realism in its devastating ending, ‘Khol Do’ demonstrates both the futility of attempting to definitively fix meaning in the context of unrelenting ambiguity, as well as the vital necessity of Urdu literature in constructing new communities of reading and interpretation in the wake of the ruptures of Partition.