Deconstructive pedagogy and ideological demystification in post-colonial Pakistan

With post-colonial Pakistan inheriting the British colonial ideological and governmental apparatus, the English literature curriculum implemented at the university level in Pakistan carried the interpellatory baggage of its colonial past. Our interdisciplinary exploration focuses on using deconstructive pedagogy to demystify and subvert the ideological conditioning of Pakistani students that is done through the English literary syllabi taught at the Masters level in Pakistani universities. These pedagogical practices involve genealogical and deconstructive readings of selected English literary texts taught to students pursuing a Master of English degree at the International Islamic University, Islamabad. These practices involve an activation of deconstructive readings through class discussions to unveil the different hegemonic processes involved in the constitution of docile political subjects. They challenge any authoritative interpretation of canonical texts, creating new meanings by activating the play of trace and differénce in the re-readings of these texts within post-colonial Pakistan. The class discussions have been transcribed to show how the English literary texts introduced in the colonial era have been extracted out of a Western epistemological closure. In addition, their role in the constitution of colonial and post-colonial subjectivities has been discussed. These discussions raise questions regarding the opaque processes of self-constitution, yet do not aim at re-interpellating the students. They simply revisit the closure within which the students' thoughts and subjectivities are confined, and open up the progression of thought processes so that the functionality of different viewpoints within different communities may be constantly re-visited to defy ideological colonization.