PhD | Tracing Modernity and Freedom in (post)Colonial Pakistan: A Visual, Discursive, and Semiotic Analysis – Sabahat Zehra

Image info: Photograph of cover page of Pakistan quarterly taken at the British Library. Photo credits: Dr. Sanjukta Sunderason.

PhD | Tracing Modernity and Freedom in (post)Colonial Pakistan: A Visual, Discursive, and Semiotic Analysis – Sabahat Zehra
PhD candidate: Sabahat Zehra
Institution: University of Amsterdam
Supervisors: Sanjukta Sunderason, Monique Roelofs

This thesis aims to explore “freedom” and “modernity” in their varying versions from the 1950s to the 1990s in Pakistan. The main goal is to analyze the differing ways in which these colonial categories of analyses are adopted, recontextualized, and represented in visual culture and discourse across the country’s history. The thesis aims to draw connections between the power structures present in the country and tie them to colonial roots of epistemological violence. The project does this by engaging with cultural discourse and visuality/ies of nationalism, protest and dissent, globalization, universalism, and artistic practices as they tie with or converge from the ideologies of the “Islamic” “Republic” of Pakistan.