Pakistan/Blogistan: Utilizing Social Media for Feminist Intellectual History

Public spaces that also provide the possibility for anonymity, social media websites provide challenging and promising sources for the historian. In this paper I will explore the potential for a feminist intellectual history through analysis of the online testimonials posted by women on the Pakistani Atheists and Agnostics (PAA) website. These women emphasize their national belonging to Pakistan while rejecting Islam as it is represented and practiced by the state. I argue that a feminist intellectual history would take seriously the theoretical contributions of PAA writers, especially their compelling ideas concerning bodily autonomy, liberalism, and hermeneutics. Additionally, examination of this movement is a fruitful opportunity to investigate women’s writing and women’s experiences as expressed in dynamic online texts and communities.