Reading Nafisi in the West: Feminist Reading Practices and Ethical Concerns

Abstract

Iranian women’s memoirs have become increasingly popular in the West. Certainly the most popular of these has been Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran. But in a world in which Muslim women are increasingly the subject of neo-Orientalist fear and fascination, Reading Lolita in Tehran cannot be read as neutral. We begin this paper by analyzing the ways in which discourses such as “the clash of civilizations” and “global sisterhood” shape the reception of Nafisi’s autobiography. We then examine how the autobiography is being taught, providing both a framework for problematizing current approaches to the text and a case study centred on teaching Reading Lolita in Tehran to a group of preservice teachers. We argue for a continuing interrogation into our own pedagogical practices and desires.