Joseph Donica

The Veil in Public Space: Critique, Participation, Citizenship

Feb. 2, 2:00pm, Library Law Classroom (NL-314)

As one of the most controversial public symbols, the veil has the ability to offer a critique in public space that other symbols do not. The veil's role in public life has come under well-documented attacks about what exactly it symbolizes and who should be able to wear it. Also, recent attempts to make the veil cool or just as Western as skinny jeans removes not only of the veil's religious significance but also its ability to have any critique on US conceptions of what it means to be a citizen and to participate in public life. If the veil is seen as something political or something that critiques western norms, is there something that normalizing the veil does to elide its potential for critique? In this talk I address the role the veil in street art. I look to the problematic #DamnILookGood project in which two New York artists, Saks Afridi and Qinza Najm, stand on New York streets with hijabs for women to try on and then take a selfie of themselves. But I also look to three artists who have used the veil extensively in their work in more complex ways, Princess Hijab, BR1, and Shepard Farey. In looking to the role of the veil in street art, we can begin to see how the veil can simultaneously critique certain norms while also offering Muslim women some form of representation that allows for a discussion of their autonomy and what citizenship has come to mean in the US and Europe.

Joseph Donica is an assistant professor of English at Bronx Community College of the City University of New York. He teaches American literature, literary criticism and theory, and writing courses. He has published articles and reviews on American architecture, 9/11 literature, Arab-American literature, Netflix and the digital future, Hurricane Katrina memoirs, and disability studies. His latest two articles are "Rethinking Utopia for the Twenty-First Century: The Good Life after Occupy and the Arab Spring" and "Negative Memory after Katrina: The Persistence of Memoir." He is co-editing a collection of essays titled "Reflections on a Changing Profession: The Future of the English PhD" and writing his first monograph titled "Inequality's Memory: American Literature after Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring." 

moderator: Julia Miele Rodas