Summer Pervez
Associate

Email: Summer.Pervez@ufv.ca

Professional designation/degrees: Lecturer / Assistant Professor, World Literatures
Degrees:
PhD English, 2007, University of Ottawa
MA English, 2002, University of Western Ontario
B.A. Combined Honours in English and Comparative Literature, 2001, University of
Western Ontario

Faculty/Department: Department of English, University of the Fraser Valley

Personal Biography: I was born displaced, into three distinct cultures – I am a Pakistani who was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, and from pre-kindergarten on, I studied in American-run private schools where my teachers were mostly American and Canadian. One can argue that what has resulted from being born displaced is a crisis of identity (where I am from, for example, is a tough question for me to answer), but I like to view my displacement as advantageous, for it allows me to be a multiplicity in terms of my identity.

I grew up learning English, Urdu, and Punjabi simultaneously, in a country of Arabic-speakers. My family went back to Pakistan for three or four month annually, and I am grateful for this experience; it has meant that I have never lost touch with my roots and culture. My mother was a teacher of Urdu literature and language in Pakistan prior to her marriage; she taught my three siblings and I Urdu at home, and thus we were able to speak both Urdu and Punjabi as well as English amongst our extended family in Pakistan.

After ninth grade, I attended a private all-girls boarding school in Pennsylvania for three years, where I was fully immersed in the other half of my identity: Western culture and thought. When I moved to Canada in 1997 with my family, our motives were two-fold: affordable and respected university educations, and the best health care for the country’s citizens than we had seen anywhere else in the world.

I obtained my BA and MA from the University of Western Ontario in London, and my PhD from the University of Ottawa. My family is still settled near Toronto, the city I moved here from, and one that I consider home.

Research Interests: My recent publications include work on Salman Rushdie, Homi Bhabha, Wole Soyinka, Naguib Mahfouz, and Hanif Kureishi among others. My current research interests – an extension of my doctoral work – include British South Asian diaspora literature, the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, film and film theory, as well as global terrorism. My primary research areas include South Asian literature (especially surrounding Partition), twentieth-century British literature (Modernist and contemporary), postcolonial literature and theory, and literary theory and criticism more generally. Secondary areas include English Renaissance literature, children’s literature, and African literature.

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