Speaking the Silence: Rape, Language and the Victim in Urdu Partition Literature and Oral History

My research focuses on the ways in which popular Urdu literary works have challenged mainstream discourse pertaining to gender-based violence in Pakistan, especially the use of the figure of the 'raped woman' and its representation in South Asian literary memory of the Partition. My contention with language is largely related to its culturally inflected use in literary and mainstream discourse.