The Reluctant Fundamentalist

 The Reluctant Fundamentalist

A. Pre-Watching Activities 

1. Critical Reading & Reflection 

1.Read excerpts from Ania Loomba on the “New American Empire” and Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri’s Empire. How do these theories reframe globalization beyond the center–margin dichotomy?

Ans : Ania Loomba’s analysis of the New American Empire and Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri’s Empire collectively shift our understanding of globalization away from a simplistic, hierarchical center–margin model. Instead of seeing global dynamics as a unidirectional flow from dominant centers (the West) to passive peripheries (the Global South), these theories emphasize diffuse networks of power, deterritorialized authority, and hybrid identities.

1. Loomba’s “New American Empire”

Ania Loomba critiques postcolonial narratives that still rely on dated binaries—civilized vs. uncivilized, center vs. margin—and she highlights how the rise of a “New American Empire” complicates such binaries. In particular:

Post-9/11 globalization intensified the urgency of postcolonial critique, as the U.S. aggressively projected power not merely through overt territorial control, but through ideological, military, and cultural dominance—often operating equally across so-called centers and margins.

This imperialism is not a simple top-down imposition; it emerges through bilateral encounters, discourse, and cultural framing—making marginal positions both influenced by and complicit in the global system.

2. Hardt & Negri’s Empire

In Empire (2000), Hardt and Negri propose a transformative view of sovereignty and control:

They argue that contemporary global power no longer resides in fixed nation-states but in a decentered Empire: a network of transnational institutions, legal orders, corporations, and media that exercise power globally.

Empire operates by shaping subjects and managing affective flows across all territories—whether traditionally understood as center or periphery—thus collapsing hierarchical binaries.

Their subsequent works, Multitude (2004) and Commonwealth (2009), expand on how resistance emerges not just from the margins but within the global system itself, highlighting collective subjectivities and shared spaces of power and resistance.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

This reframed understanding of globalization enriches our reading of both the novel and film adaptation:

Changez operates within hybrid identities—educated at Princeton and working on Wall Street—embodying both center and margin.

His disillusionment shows how corporate and state forms of power converge across geographies.

The story becomes a reflection of a global network of influences, not a binary East-versus-West conflict.

Loomba’s framework helps us see how suspicion, mimicry, and mistrust are not peripheral phenomena but are shaped by engagement with Empire.

Hardt & Negri’s concept of Empire helps unpack the film’s visual metaphors that link religious fundamentalism and corporate fundamentalism, suggesting both are expressions of systemic power.

2.Reflect in 300-word responses: How might these frameworks illuminate The Reluctant Fundamentalist as a text about empire, hybridity, and post-9/11 geopolitics? 

Ans : 

Ania Loomba’s concept of the New American Empire and Hardt & Negri’s theory of Empire together reveal The Reluctant Fundamentalist as a narrative deeply embedded in global power networks rather than a simple East–West opposition. Loomba reminds us that post-9/11 politics intensified an already-existing imperial logic where the United States exerts ideological, military, and cultural influence far beyond territorial boundaries. Hardt & Negri further argue that power is deterritorialized and networked, sustained by corporations, media, and transnational law.

In Mohsin Hamid’s novel and Mira Nair’s film, Changez’s trajectory from Princeton and Wall Street to Lahore exemplifies this interconnected imperial web. His professional success at Underwood Samson situates him within the corporate “fundamentalism” of profit-maximization—a form of Empire that mirrors the rigidity of religious extremism. Post-9/11 suspicion and racial profiling disrupt his sense of belonging, revealing how imperial power operates even in the so-called centers of globalization.

Hybridity, as Bhabha theorizes, is central to Changez’s identity. He inhabits a “third space,” shaped by both Pakistani cultural roots and American elite institutions. This hybridity is not a harmonious blending but a site of tension, where mimicry of Western norms coexists with growing disillusionment. His relationship with Erica serves as a metaphor for the asymmetrical romance between the U.S. and its “others”—marked by longing, exoticization, and ultimate estrangement.

Barad’s discussion on globalization and postcolonial studies clarifies that such narratives must be read within broader systems of deterritorialized empire, where resistance and complicity coexist. Changez’s “reluctance” is not just toward terrorism but toward all absolutist ideologies—whether military, religious, or corporate. The text thus illuminates how post-9/11 geopolitics are shaped by overlapping empires, producing fractured identities and spaces for both compliance and resistance.

2. Contextual Research  

1.Investigate Hamid’s background and the timeline of writing the novel. Note how the 9/11 attacks reshaped his narrative.

Ans : 

Mohsin Hamid was born in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1971 and educated partly in the United States, attending Princeton University and later Harvard Law School. His career included work at the New York office of the corporate consultancy McKinsey & Company, giving him firsthand experience of elite corporate culture—an experience that deeply informs the character of Changez.

Hamid began drafting The Reluctant Fundamentalist in the late 1990s, before the September 11, 2001 attacks. His original focus was on a cross-cultural romance between a Pakistani man and an American woman, exploring themes of identity, alienation, and belonging. However, after 9/11, the geopolitical climate and cultural discourse shifted dramatically. As Ania Loomba’s notion of the “New American Empire” and Hardt & Negri’s Empire suggest, the attacks intensified global suspicion, racial profiling, and securitization—especially toward Muslim and South Asian identities.

Hamid rewrote the novel to embed this altered political reality. Changez’s personal disillusionment becomes inseparable from the larger post-9/11 environment: his Wall Street career is recast against the backdrop of a hyper-nationalist, security-obsessed America; his relationship with Erica becomes a metaphor for the fractured ties between the U.S. and the Muslim world. The narrative also adopts a dramatic monologue format, heightening ambiguity and reflecting the mutual mistrust characteristic of post-9/11 geopolitics.

This shift transformed the novel into a more overtly political and postcolonial text, interrogating not only terrorism and counter-terrorism but also the “fundamentalism” of global capitalism and imperial power. As Barad (2022) notes, such reconfigurations in storytelling align with the postcolonial urgency to challenge monolithic global narratives and expose the complex, hybrid identities shaped by deterritorialized Empire.

2.Write a short summary (150 words): What is the significance of Hamid having begun the novel before 9/11 but completing it thereafter? 

Ans : 

 

Mohsin Hamid began drafting The Reluctant Fundamentalist in the late 1990s, originally focusing on a cross-cultural love story exploring identity and belonging. However, the September 11, 2001 attacks radically altered the global political and cultural climate, especially for Muslim and South Asian identities in the West. In response, Hamid rewrote the novel to reflect this shift, embedding themes of post-9/11 suspicion, racial profiling, and the politics of the “War on Terror.” The protagonist, Changez, now embodies both the allure and alienation of globalization—thriving in the corporate world yet disillusioned by its moral emptiness. By starting pre-9/11 and finishing post-9/11, Hamid captured a world in transition, where personal relationships and global geopolitics became deeply entangled. This transformation gave the novel its political edge, enabling it to interrogate not just religious extremism but also the “fundamentalism” of corporate capitalism and deterritorialized empire.

B. While-Watching Activities 

1. Character Conflicts & Themes 

1.Father/son or generational split: Observe how corporate modernity (Changez at Underwood Samson) clashes with poetic-rooted values—though more implicit, think via symbolism or narrative tension.

Ans : 

In both Mohsin Hamid’s novel and Mira Nair’s adaptation, the generational split is subtly expressed through the tension between corporate modernity and poetic-rooted cultural values. Changez’s career at Underwood Samson represents the Empire’s corporate fundamentalism—profit maximization, efficiency, and global market dominance (Hardt & Negri, 2000; Stiglitz, 2002). This world values analytical detachment and instrumental logic, stripping life of emotional or cultural resonance.

By contrast, Changez’s father, a man of literary taste and refined aesthetic sensibilities, embodies the poetic, humanist values of Lahore’s intellectual tradition. He resists the lure of material wealth, viewing dignity and cultural heritage as markers of a meaningful life. Ania Loomba’s postcolonial framework helps explain this as a resistance to the “New American Empire,” where global capitalism erodes local identities.

The symbolism is implicit: Changez’s expensive suits and corporate success in New York contrast with his father’s modest lifestyle and poetry-filled home. Istanbul becomes a cinematic metaphor—its layered history and cultural hybridity challenge the monoculture of Wall Street. The film emphasizes these contrasts visually: warm, earthy tones in Lahore and Istanbul versus the cold, sterile palette of New York’s corporate interiors.

This generational tension also mirrors a larger postcolonial split: younger elites drawn into the Empire’s networks, and older generations grounded in cultural memory and skepticism toward Western modernity (Barad, 2022). Changez’s eventual rejection of corporate life signals a return to his father’s values, blending them with his own post-9/11 political awakening.

Thus, the father–son dynamic, while understated, is central to the narrative’s critique of globalization. It frames Changez’s journey as not only personal but emblematic of a postcolonial subject negotiating between the seductions of global capital and the pull of cultural rootedness.