Displaced Ornaments: The Feminine Between Immanence and Transcendence
"Displaced Ornaments: The Feminine Between Immanence and Transcendence" by Ali Mian, a Ph.D. candidate in the Graduate Program in Religion.This paper analyzes contemporary Pakistani artist Naiza Khan's exhibition, "Heavenly Ornaments," in relation to multiple philosophical discourses, including feminist theory, continental philosophy, and Islamic moral thought. It argues that while Khan's artwork aligns itself with the feminist theoretical critique of Hegel's reduction of the feminine to the ornamental, her artwork also takes issue with traditional Muslim discourses that reinscribe the feminine within the ornamental. As an alternative Khan offers a compelling body of work that imagines the feminine as both ornamental and essential, immanent and transcendental.