This presentation examines the possibilities of constructing discourses of resistance to domination. Within a context of mainstream media representations of oppressed and passive Muslim women, how do North American Muslim women artists “talk back” to dominant discourses about their identity? Through an analysis of the media interventions of exceptional women artists–including the visual art and films of Iranian-American Shirin Neshat and the films and television comedy of Pakistani-Canadian Zarqa Nawaz–Dr. Oumlil examines the ways in which the artists circulate alternative discourses and call for a redistribution of symbolic power.
Kenza Oumlil is an Associate Professor in Communication and Gender at Al Akhawayn
University in Ifrane (AUI), Morocco. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication from Concordia University in Montréal, Canada. She has published widely on representation, gender, and media including articles in Journal of North African Studies, Arab Studies Quarterly, Journal of Middle East Media, and Al-Jazeera English. She is currently working on a manuscript titled North American Muslim Women Artists Talk Back: Assertions of Unintelligibility.