Nyla Ali Khan

Dr. Nyla Ali Khan is a Visiting Professor at the University of Oklahoma and former professor at the University of Nebraska-Kearney.^[1] She is the author of two books, including The Fiction of Nationality in an Era of Transnationalism and Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir: Between Indian and Pakistan, and several articles that focus heavily on the political issues and strife of her homeland, Jammu and Kashmir. Despite being the granddaughter of Sheikh Abdullah, Nyla Khan prefers not simply to live in his shadow but to "stand up for myself and be taken seriously ... express my anger without being labeled an 'Islamic militant' ... [and] legitimately question things I don't understand", as she stated in a 2010 interview related to the release of her second book.^[2][3][4]

Biography

Khan is from Indian administered Jammu and Kashmir, and was raised in the Kashmir Valley located in the foothills of the Himalayas. Her mother, Suraiya Abdullah Ali, is a retired professor of literature, and her father, Mohammad Ali Matto, is a retired physician. She is the only child of Suraiya Abdullah Ali and Mohammad Ali Matto--and the granddaughter of Sheikh Abdullah. She did her Masters in Postcolonial Literature and Theory at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, and obtained her Ph. D. at the same institution.

Publications

Books

In her first book, The Fiction of Nationality in an Era of Transnationalism, she "examines the writings of V.S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, and Anita Desai, all four living abroad to explain the aberrant behaviour of emigres from the Indian subcontinent to explain why they support religious fundamentalist groups in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh."^[5] In doing so, she strives to provide an objective view of how transnationalism can distort impressions of reality. In reviewing her book, Khushwant Singh notes that the transnational subjects examined by Dr. Khan "having settled abroad, [...] develop an exaggerated sense of belonging, swallow fabricated history of their glorious pasts and despite having no intention of returning to the lands of their nativity give emotional and monetary support to subversive elements."^[6]

• Review by Steven Salaita ^[7]

In her second book, Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir: Between Indian and Pakistan, she examins women in Islam in "the first th[o]rough study of the tragedy of Kashmir done by a Kashmiri woman."^[8] "Khan uses the analytical tools of postmodern, feminist criticism to understand and highlight the role--passive and active--that women have played in Kashmir's history, ranging from the 14th century Lal Ded, a mystic poet who laid the foundations of Kashmir's syncretic culture, to the present day Parveena Ahangar who represents the Association of the Parents of the Disappeared People."^[9] Interspersed within are oral histories from women who serve to defend Kashmir from invasion, women who had previously been long ignored.^[10]

• review by the University of Nebraska Kearney. ^[11]
• Review by Amitabh Mattoo in 'India Today, January 22, 2010^[12]
• Review by Jaskiran Mathur in Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 11 #1 November 2009, 328-332. ^[13]
• Review by Dr. Mustafa Kamal, "Of women, politics and Kashmiriyat"" in Kashmir Times, Srinagar, Monday, November 9, 2009, 3-4.
• Review by Seema Kazi in Conveyor, November 2009, 61-63

Book Chapters

• “The Land of Lalla-Ded: Negation of ‘Kashmiriyat’ and Immiseration of the Kashmiri Woman.” Contesting Nation: Gendered Violence in South Asia. Notes on the Postcolonial Present. Ed. Angana Chatterji and Lubna Nazir Chaudhry. New Delhi: Zubaan Books, 2010.
• “Citizenship in a Transnational Age: Culture and Politics in Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines.” In Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines: A Critical Companion." Ed. Murari Prasad. Delhi: Pencraft International, 2007. Forthcoming.

Peer-reviewed articles

• “Citizenship in a Transnational Age: Culture and Politics in Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines.” The Journal of Indian Writing in English 33.2 (2005): 42-52.
• “Frederick Douglass : A Reinscriptive Discourse.” World Literature Today 2 (2001): 48-57.

“The Reinscription of Dichotomies in Rushdie’s Hybridized Protagonists.” Journal of South Asian Literature 35 (2000): 82-99.

Other articles

• “Place and the Politics of Identity in Desai's In Custody.” Atlantic Literary Review 5.1-2 (2004): 128-145.

Conference presentations

She co-organized the 2006 South Asian Literary Association Conference on “Postcolonialism and South Asian Diasporas,” which was held in conjunction with the Modern Language Association Conference in Philadelphia. Over the years, she has had sixteen conference papers selected for presentation at major conferences, such as the South Asian Literary Association Conference, the Modern Language Association Conference, Annual British Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies Conference, and the International Global Studies Conference.

She presented on “Negotiating the Boundaries of Gender, Community, and Nationhood” at the faculty Roundtable: “Transnational Feminism and Research Methodology.” Women’s Studies Conference: “No Limits 2008: Transnational Feminism.” University of Nebraska at Kearney, Kearney, Nebraska, Mar. 1, 2008. She also chaired the panel on “Traversing Political, National, and International Spaces.” Women’s Studies Conference: “No Limits 2008: Transnational Feminism.” She has given public lectures on her scholarly work at the California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, and at the Center for Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada.

References

1. ^ University of Oklahoma website
2. ^ Interview in Epilogue magazine
3. ^ http://issuu.com/epilogue/docs/epilogue-november-2009 November 2009 Vol 3 Issue 12 p 38-41
4. ^ http://issuu.com/epilogue/docs/epilogue December 2009 Vol 3 Issue 12 p 27-30
5. ^ http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060902/saturday/above.htm
6. ^ http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060902/saturday/above.htm
7. ^ South Asian Review, Vol. XXVII, No. 1 (2006): 274-275.
8. ^ http://www.unknews.com/UNK/story/?a=2812
9. ^ http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/80428/Leisure/Blood+and+tears.html
10. ^ http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/80428/Leisure/Blood+and+tears.html
11. ^ [1]
12. ^ [2]
13. ^ [3]