Journal of World Sociopolitical Studies

Abstract The chronic problem of police brutality against Black communities prompted the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Rising protests revealed that the killings of African Americans were not isolated events, but symptoms of a system of racial injustice. Literature, in this respect, emerged as an important locus through which marginalized groups voice counter-narratives that oppose hegemonic racial logics and stereotypical representations of Blackness as criminality. While the sociopolitical implications of BLM have been thoroughly analyzed, there has been relatively less scholarly focus on how African-American Young Adult Literature (YAL) engages with, rearticulates, and negotiates these discourses. This article bridges that gap by subjecting Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give to the hotly debated Critical Race Theory to examine how the novel engages with the ideas of BLM and illuminates the structural dimensions of racism in America. The critique indicates that Thomas constructs a counter-narrative revolving around systemic racism, racial profiling, police brutality, white privilege, implicit bias, and the intersection of race with other forms of marginalization. Situating the novel in literary and activist contexts, this study highlights YAL’s potential to mirror, challenge, and redefine cultural consciousness, thus positioning the genre as an essential site of contemporary social justice activism.

Abstract In the present paper, Murad’s memoir, The Last Girl, is scrutinized through the lens of Resistance Literature theories. First introduced by Kanafani (1966) and adapted by scholars such as Harlow (1987) and Sangari (1389 [2010 A. D.]), Resistance Literature has come to constitute pieces of writing that are written during or after a conflict by people experiencing life under the oppressive power. For Harlow and Sangari, what is of utmost importance is the accounts of war experience pictured by civilians from all walks of life. With the Syrian war with the ISIS escalating in 2011 and its consequent overflow into Iraq, the extremist terrorists brought the war to the doorsteps of ordinary people, massacring men and leaving women to deal with the aftermath. The Last Girl is Nadia Murad’s retelling of life under the ISIS as a Yazidi-Iraqi woman. At first glance, Murad pictures a sad, yet vivid image of the Yazidi genocide by the ISIS. However, in a deeper analysis of the text, one finds how being ripped apart from family, utterly displaced, terrorized and raped can also shape a rather stronger, resistant person. By applying Harlow and Sangari’s theories of Resistance to Murad’s memoir, what is manifested is the way in which being appointed to various kinds of terror in war-time can create a more resistant self in someone.

Abstract At the end of the 19^th century the British Empire faced numerous challenges, both external and internal. The cultural and political elite from across the Empire tried to find a solution to these crises. Alfred Milner was a member of this cultural and political elite. He contended that in order to safeguard the Empire, the Anglo-Saxon race had to embrace what he called “Constructive Imperialism” and gain an “imperial consciousness”. The aim of this article is first to analyze the nature of the crises the Empire faced, and discover the way in which they shaped Milner’s brand of Imperialism; second to situate Alfred Milner’s Constructive Imperialism in its cultural and political milieu; third to find its roots in the greater history of the British Empire; and finally, to understand why Alfred Milner failed to convince the Empire to embrace Constructive Imperialism. In order to reach its defined objectives, this article examines Alfred Milner’s Constructive Imperialism from a historical standpoint and then utilizes the Contrapuntal Analysis of Edward Said to further investigate its narrative.

Abstract Islamophobia is defined as a closed-minded hatred, fear or prejudice toward Islam and Muslims that result in discrimination, marginalization, and oppression. This phenomenon was strengthened after September 11 marked a watershed in the history of America. In the wake of 9/11, Islamophobia was promulgated in a plethora of textual and visual narratives, including novel. This paper studies Islamophobia in Greg Hrbek’s latest novel Not on Fire, But Burning (2015). A close reading of the novel reveals that the novel couples Islam with terrorism and barbarity, and sets forth the Self/Other dichotomy, which is rather cherished in the discourse of Islamophobia. As observed in a long history of Islamophobic rhetoric, Hrbek’s novel depicts that certain people, undoubtedly Muslims, are outside the American system of values, ready to catch America off-guard. With the images the work promotes of Islam and its followers, it is argued that Not on Fire, But Burning reinforces Islamophobia and biased frames of reference on Islam and Muslims.