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A Study on the Construction of Post-colonial Muslim Identity against the Reinforced Anti-Muslimist Racialization after 9/11 in Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced

  • Journal of Modern English Drama
  • Abbr : JMBARD
  • 2017, 30(3), pp.6-31
  • DOI : 10.29163/jmed.2017.12.30.3.5
  • Publisher : 한국현대영미드라마학회
  • Research Area : Humanities > English Language and Literature > English Literature > Contemporary English Drama

Kang, Hyeong-min 1

1건국대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Since the 9/11 attacks, in the U.S., Islamophobia and discriminating racialization against Muslims and Southwest Asians have been reinforced. Ayard Akhtar, a Pakistani American playwright, in his Pulitzer Prize winning play Digraced, studies the reinforced anti-Muslimist racialization after the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. In the play, the two Pakistani American male characters, Amir and Abe, have at first tried to assimilate themselves to the mainstream American society and culture in order to evade the prejudice and discrimination against them from the mainstream American people. However, rather than successfully incorporating themselves into the mainstream American society and culture, they have been forced to stay out of the mainstream American society and culture and to live as religious and racial other in the U.S. because of the reinforced Islamophobia and racialization against Muslims and Southwest Asians in the U.S. since the 9/11 attacks. Therefore, given the fact that their assimilationist efforts have eventually failed, the two Pakistani American characters begin to understand that their current hardships are connected to their own colonial history. Thus, they come to realize the fact that if they want to fight back they must construct their true post-colonial identity, and rediscover their own religious and cultural values as Muslims. Overall, the play could work as a warning to the on-going trend of Islamophobia and racializaion against Muslims and Southwest Asians in the U.S.

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