GISC Afghanistan Series Presents: "Flowers, Love and the Landscape of Violence: Queering War in Afghanistan"
In the last two decades, representation of Afghans and Afghanistan has been rendered to a people and landscape in void of love and life. In the heteropatriarchal and orientalist depictions, Afghan women have remained as the historically oppressed and devotedly loveless while Afghan men move between the violently masculine and categorically weak. The non-binary, trans and queer Afghans have remained invisible. These depictions have justified the continued war in Afghanistan and its subsequent everyday violence. Through a de/colonial and visual ethnography of Afghans and Afghanistan , Flowers, Love and the Landscape of Violence queers the war and Afghans’ lived experiences of violence in the country. Dr. Ahmad Qais Munhazim will offer alternative lenses and methodologies to understand Afghan masculinities, femininities, queerness and the in-betweens.
Dr. Ahmad Qais Munhazim, genderqueer, Afghan, Muslim and perpetually displaced, is an assistant professor of global studies at the Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Qais was born and raised in Kabul, Afghanistan. Qais’ work troubles borders of academia, activism and art while exploring everyday experiences of displacements and war/conflicts in the lives of queer and trans Afghans.
This event is free and open to everyone. This event is a part of a series on Afghanistan, presented by the Global Islamic Studies Center and and co-sponsored by the Institute for Research on Women and Gender.
