Opening doors in loveless worlds : epistemic violence and epistemic resistance in The Open Door and Against the Loveless World

Diplôme Master Opening doors in loveless worlds : epistemic violence and epistemic resistance in The Open Door and Against the Loveless World eng 2026-08-19 author Rofael Marina Nader Karam 422641 director Madsen Deborah Lea 0000-0002-5698-7372 134908 Département de langue et littérature anglaises (ANGL1) 89 Frantz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth positions violence at the center of anti-colonial resistance, emerging from and responding to the violent structures of colonial domination. Edward Said’s Orientalism demonstrates how colonial domination also operates through the production of knowledge while Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in “Can the Subaltern Speak?” examines how such systems of knowledge silence and define the subaltern through what she terms “epistemic violence.” These approaches pay comparatively less attention to how marginalized subjects can become active epistemic subjects and resist through knowledge itself; therefore, this thesis shifts the focus from violence to knowledge as a site of resistance. Focusing on Susan Abulhawa’s Against the Loveless World (2020) and Latifa al-Zayyat’s The Open Door (1960), the novels move beyond epistemic violence by imagining forms of epistemic resistance. Through retrospective narration, close focalization, and embodied narration, the novels trace how epistemic resistance begins with the protagonists’ recognition of the colonial and patriarchal structures that shape and define them; even when economic precarity, fear, or obedience limit their ability to act, this renewed understanding can eventually lead to nonviolent forms of resistance. Epistemic violence Epistemic resistance Postcolonial literature Patriarchy Colonialism Women’s resistance Dewey 420/820 Master in english language and literature 84 Département de langue et de littérature anglaises 3B false 5ed47ed2-4b4e-4982-aaf8-1a97c2a28c81 Master thesis Private Marina_Nader_Karam_ROFAEL_-_Memoire.pdf 546840 application/pdf b519d306dfa23951575337504533d5fe262af6b4b96051739e6c7c411f15dd62 closedAccess Faculté des lettres / Département de langue et de littérature anglaises

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Opening doors in loveless worlds : epistemic violence and epistemic resistance in The Open Door and Against the Loveless World				2026	1	0

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Rofael, Marina Nader Karam

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