Y'Allah Muslim Girls! The Pedagogy of Real and Fictional Muslim Girl Justice Fighters

• In Event: 77.057 - MTCC Roundtable Session 35
  In Roundtable Session: 77.057-4 - Critical Pedagogies and Literacy

Abstract

In previous work, I have examined how Muslim girls and women, especially in so-called Third world contexts, are discursively constructed as the objects of Western benevolence and interventions on a range of military, economic, humanitarian, and educational fronts. In this presentation I highlight my recent work on the pedagogical effects of real and fictional Muslim girls who seem to embody more complicated constructs ¬ of independence, agency, and power. I examine 20 year old Pakistani education rights activist Malala Yousafzai, 17 year old Palestinian anti occupation activist Ahed Tamimi, 11 year old Parvana the spunky Afghani heroine in the children’s book The Breadwinner, and Kamala Kahn/Ms. Marvel, the teenaged American Muslim superhero in the Marvel Comics universe.

Author

• Ozlem Sensoy, Simon Fraser University