Iffat Mirza
- PhD student
Contact
About
Supervisor: Professor Geoffrey Kantaris
Research Topic: The rediscovery and creation of Subaltern Epistemologies in the Global South through comparative readings of Latin American and South Asian literature.
Iffat completed her BA (Hons) at King’s College London in Comparative Literature (2020) and in the following year completed her MPhil in European and Latin American Comparative Literatures and Cultures (2021). From a Pakistani immigrant family, she is keen to uncover Pakistani and other South Asian literatures particularly in a comparative framework with other regions of the world where cultural and historical similarities can be discovered, which drew her towards Latin America. Through such research, cultural decolonisation comes to the fore, an area of research Iffat is very interested in since being a part of the ‘Decolonising the Curriculum’ initiative at her undergraduate University. Her current research project is funded by the Cambridge Trust and Newnham College.
Research
Iffat is interested in working towards decolonisation in literature through a comparative framework. She is researching the parallels in literature from Latin America and South Asia as well as the influence these literary cultures may have had on one another, particularly in the context of resisting Global North hegemony. Iffat seeks to further the discourse on how literature produced and disseminated in the Global South was a powerful vehicle to counter narratives of hegemony and dominance from the Global North and Imperial powers in the 20th Century.
Scholarships/Prizes:
Cambridge Trust Scholarship