Embattled Ideologies: I Am Malala and the Question of Women’s Education in South Asia
Embattled Ideologies: I Am Malala and the
Question of Women’s Education in South Asia
The Go Big Read program has been fielding requests from the reading community for a venue that allows for deeper conversation of the themes presented in “I Am Malala”, as well as an event that features UW faculty and experts in the region of study.
The
UW Lubar Institute for the Study of the Abrahamic Religions is holding a
free, public symposium on November 11th entitled: Embattled Ideologies: I Am Malala and the
Question of Women’s Education in South Asia
Event Description: Beyond the dramatic story of Malala
Yousafzai’s life and struggle for women’s education as recounted
in I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was
Shot by the Taliban—UW-Madison’s Go Big Read book
selection for 2014—lie profound and complex questions:
–What are the larger and deeper
ideological forces that underpin the political and
humanitarian forefront of the “Malala” story? How do we make
sense of the perspective of the emancipators even as we want
to unravel the fury of the extremists?
–Why are some people staunchly opposed
to extremism but also suspicious of the extraordinary
limelight that Yousafzai has received? And how have certain
claims made in the book offended many Pakistanis, so that
they question the extent of Yousafzai’s authorship?
–How and why do the politics and ethics
of international development aid sometimes backfire? Why are
universal concepts such as “womanhood,” “human rights,” or
even “education” often problematic?
This symposium brings together scholars
whose joint expertise cuts across the challenges of women’s
education in tribal Pakistan, the historical encounter of Islam
and modernity, and the cultural problematics of international
aid. The goal of the program is to highlight how in South Asia
and elsewhere debates about educational reform and women’s
education in particular do not occur in a vacuum but are highly
inflected by historically embedded ideologies, and culturally
and politically vexed notions about human identity, education
and development.
PRESENTERS:
Nancy Kendall is Associate Professor of Educational Policy Studies,
University of Wisconsin-Madison, who specializes in ethnographic
studies of comparative, international, and global education policy. She
is affiliated with the UW African Studies Program, Department of Gender and Women’s Studies, Development Studies Program, and Global Health Institute.
Her research has examined children’s sense-making and
experiences with gender and education, political
democratization, sexuality and HIV/AIDS education, and
orphan-focused international programming.
Omar Qureshi is currently the principal of the Islamic Foundation School (Villa
Park, Illinois) with considerable experience of teaching at
public and private schools in Saudi Arabia and the United States. He
has studied the Islamic religious sciences with a number of traditional
scholars in Syria and Saudi Arabia and holds specialization in Islamic
law and theology. He is also a Ph.D. candidate in Cultural and Educational Policy Studies at Loyola University–Chicago. His dissertation explores the conception of the highest good in Islamic Education.
Sidra Rind is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Educational Policy Studies
at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She received the Virginia Horne
Henry Award for her research on female students in the tribal parts of
Pakistan. She studies how in the province of Balochistan competing
pressures from the state, the separatists, and the Taliban have shaped
the educational experience of Pakistani schoolgirls.
MODERATOR:
Tayyab Zaidi is a doctoral student in Educational Policy Studies,
UW–Madison, working toward a dissertation on models of Islamic
education in America. His research interests cut across the educational
applications of multimodal and systemic-functional analysis,
postcolonial studies, and the impact of Muslim organizations. He is a
recipient of the Fulbright Award and the Higher Education Commission
Pakistan scholarship. Tayyab holds masters degrees in English as well
as Applied Linguistics from the University of Karachi, Pakistan, and in
Educational Studies from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.