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Representing Islam: female subjects in Suzanne Fisher Staples's novels

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journal contribution
posted on 2007-01-01, 00:00 authored by Clare BradfordClare Bradford
This article offers a reading of Suzanne Fisher Staples's novels Shabanu, Haveli,and Under the Persimmon Tree, drawing on postcolonial theory (in particular, Chandra Talpade Mohanty's essay "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses" and Edward Said's Orientalism) to inform its analysis of the construction of girls and women in these texts. It argues that the novels' representations of Muslim girls are built on a naturalized contrast between liberal humanist paradigms of individualism and personal freedom, and homogenizing depictions of oppressed Muslim females, thus producing Orientalist distinctions between the West and the Orient.

History

Journal

Children's literature association quarterly

Volume

32

Season

Spring

Pagination

47 - 61

Location

Baltimore, Md.

Open access

  • Yes

ISSN

0885-0429

eISSN

1553-1201

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal; C Journal article

Copyright notice

2007, Johns Hopkins University Press

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