{"id":62,"date":"2016-04-27T02:04:50","date_gmt":"2016-04-27T02:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/?p=62"},"modified":"2016-04-27T02:08:54","modified_gmt":"2016-04-27T02:08:54","slug":"utopia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/2016\/04\/27\/utopia\/","title":{"rendered":"Utopia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Project Name:<\/em>\u6211\u4eec (Phonetic: w\u01d2men<\/em>, meaning: us)<\/p>\n

Medium:\u00a0<\/em>Ink\u00a0drawings<\/span><\/p>\n

Summary: <\/em>One theme that has been persistent throughout the course is that context is crucial,\u00a0especially within the cultural studies approach.\u00a0Sultana’s Dream\u00a0<\/em>by Rokeya Hossain depicts a feminist utopia, but it is specifically the utopia of a Muslim women living in the early twentieth century. There are clear influences of this time period, like the fascination with and optimism towards scientific innovation.<\/p>\n

In order to extend Hossain’s exploration of a\u00a0feminist utopia, I sought out two\u00a0women important to me that live\u00a0in very different contexts – my mother and my best friend from home. I asked them to give me a short answer to the following question: “What would you imagine a utopia for women to be like?” and added my own interpretation as well. I then drew my best interpretation of all our\u00a0words alongside Hossain’s imagined world, using abstract symbols to reflect the idea that utopia is dreamt of.<\/p>\n

There are some obvious differences – we live in a progressive society, one in which women are afforded the same rights as men and where feminist rhetoric is not suppressed. That being said, there are some interesting contrasts between all the explanations – Rokeya is the only one to make a distinction between men and women, while\u00a0I mentioned the blurring of this exact distinction. My mother immediately referenced personal qualities, while by best friend did so but in the context of not defining them. Overall, though is agreement that there is still work to do.<\/p>\n

*Note: drawings are linked to due to technical difficulties with WordPress<\/p>\n

\n

Rokeya, born 1880, Bengali<\/p>\n

\n

You need not be afraid of coming across a man here. This is Ladyland, free from sin and harm. (p. 8)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Drawing here<\/a><\/p>\n

Crystal, born 1968,\u00a0Chinese<\/p>\n

\n

Self-confident: happy, independent with strong mind. She knows who she is, what she wants and what she can give up.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Drawing here<\/a><\/p>\n

Shaleena, born 1995,\u00a0Bengali-American<\/p>\n

\n

A world where we don’t face the pressure to fit a certain mold…\u00a0it sounds clich\u00e9 but a world without an expectation or preference about how perfect we are (physically, having to be well-rounded, people shouting for us to lean in).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Drawing here<\/a><\/p>\n

Kat, born 1994, Asian-American<\/p>\n

\n

Somewhere where how people act towards you\u00a0is\u00a0predicated on you being human, not on you being a certain gender.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Drawing here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Project Name:\u6211\u4eec (Phonetic: w\u01d2men, meaning: us) Medium:\u00a0Ink\u00a0drawings Summary: One theme that has been persistent throughout the course is that context is crucial,\u00a0especially within the cultural studies approach.\u00a0Sultana’s Dream\u00a0by Rokeya Hossain depicts a feminist utopia, but it is specifically the utopia of a Muslim women living in the early twentieth century. There are clear influences of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7943,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7943"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions\/75"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}