The Unreal City

Date of Award

6-2026

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

English

First Advisor

Thisbe Nissen, M.F.A.

Second Advisor

Hannah Lillith Assadi. M.F.A.

Third Advisor

Alen Hamza, Ph.D.

Fourth Advisor

Jil Larson, Ph.D.

Keywords

Hybrid text, Pakistan, pandemic, The Waste Land

Abstract

The Unreal City is a contemporary reimagining of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land set in pandemic-era Pakistan. The narrative reflects my own cultural hybridity, examining how much of our identity is a function of circumstance and how much is the product of sheer imaginative will. Characters in this novel confront the world around them, learning either to navigate societal constriction or to forge their surroundings to suit their being. The novel unpacks Eliot’s allusions, translating them into contemporary Pakistani context to suit the narrative needs of the piece. The overarching concept borrows much from the original: that timeless despair over the decay and decadence of contemporaneity, explored here through artifacts and internet rabbit holes as well as conventional narration. The main character is an online magician, crafting different iterations of her identity across the internet. In The Rhetoric of Fiction, Wayne Booth writes that Henry James “emptied a center of consciousness through which everything could be seen and felt” (Booth, 24). Where does the contemporary consciousness reside if not on the internet?

Access Setting

Dissertation-Abstract Only

Restricted to Campus until

6-1-2036

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