Abstract
This paper responds to the lack of emphasis on how Islam operates as the subtext (and the context) in contemporary literature. It will discuss the literary and sociopolitical implications of making meaning of a Muslim self in the diaspora through an analysis of Tanaïs’s (they) novel, ‘Bright Lines’ (2015) which breaks new ground by placing queerness at the heart of Muslim diasporic experience. By using Brah’s ‘diaspora space’ theory and Shahab Ahmed’s theorization of Islam, this paper offers a study of the difficulty of reconfiguring the queer Muslim diasporic self in fictional works, with a focus on how Tanaïs challenge the dominant narratives about diasporic queer Muslim subjectivity in the novel. The novel, the paper will demonstrate, unsettles the tendencies to portray Islam and queer identity as a monolithic whole. Through a close-reading a few passages, the study focuses on how Tanaïs reclaim queer Muslimness by disentangling the restrictive Islamic prescriptions from Muslimness. The formation/representation of a diasporic Muslim subjectivity in the novel, I further argue, intersects with and pushes in elements of Islamic thought and feminist-queer thought in new directions within a transnational context. There emerges then a literary representation of diasporic Muslim subjectivity that resists the restrictive heteronormative, homophobic, and discriminatory impulses of both conservative Islam and secular liberalism.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
MULTIETHNIC LITERATURE, MIGRATION AND DIASPORA LITERATURE, MUSLIMNESS, QUEER MUSLIM NARRATIVES
