Challenging the discourse, retelling the story:

مرکز و کتابخانه مطالعات اسلامی به زبان های اروپایی

منو

" Challenging the discourse, retelling the story: "
Kathryn M. Mathews A. McCabe

Document Type	:	Latin Dissertation
Language of Document	:	English
Record Number	:	1103791
Doc. No	:	TLpq787891955
Main Entry	:	A. McCabe
	:	Kathryn M. Mathews
Title & Author	:	Challenging the discourse, retelling the story:\ Kathryn M. MathewsA. McCabe
College	:	Saint Louis University
Date	:	2010
student score	:	2010
Degree	:	Ph.D.
Page No	:	205-n/a
Abstract	:	In "Challenging the Discourse, Retelling the Story: Identity, Belonging, and Politically Engaged American Muslim Women's Online Conversion Narratives" I utilize various interdisciplinary approaches to examine multiple discourses at the intersections of identity, community, culture, society and digital media. I analyze a selection of online American Muslim women's conversion narratives taken from the website Islam for Today. In the study, I employ discourse analysis--drawing from Norman Fairclough and Stuart Hall's conceptualizations of discourse that highlight how discourse constitutes the social and constructs knowledge--to argue how the online narratives of female converts to Islam reflect and respond to political and certain (essentialist) feminist discourses present in mainstream American society. By defining and claiming their agency and identity, I argue that the women attempt to redefine the conventional Western definition of terms surrounding Islam through the challenging and engaging of those mainstream discourses. In so doing, they attempt to enact social change and retain/obtain membership in mainstream American society and Muslim communities. Their cultural membership is underscored by the generic structuring of their narratives which adhere to culturally popular patterns of organization. In the study, I examine the value of technology as a mediating tool for communication and presentation of identity, as well as a means of empowerment and social action.
Subject	:	Conversion
	:	Discourse
	:	Muslim women
	:	Narratives
	:	Social action
	:	Social sciences