Film Adaptation of The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Film Screening Worksheet: The Reluctant Fundamentalist 

A. Pre-Watching Activities 

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?    is this pdf relevent to this question.

Beyond Center and Margin? Deconstructing Globalization with Loomba, Hardt, and Negri

For decades, the "center-periphery" model has been a foundational lens for understanding global power. It describes a world where wealthy, powerful colonial metropoles (the centers) exploit and dominate poorer, subjugated regions (the margins or periphery). Postcolonial studies has rigorously used this framework to analyze the cultural, economic, and political aftermath of empire.

But in our era of seamless digital finance, multinational corporations, and global supply chains, a pressing question emerges: Is the old center-margin dichotomy still useful, or has globalization created a new, borderless world of power that renders it obsolete?

This is the exact question Ania Loomba tackles in the conclusion to the second edition of her seminal work, Colonialism/Postcolonialism. She does so by critically examining one of the most influential theories of 21st-century power: Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's concept of Empire.

Hardt and Negri's "Empire": A Decentered Network of Power

Hardt and Negri's central argument, as summarized by Loomba, is that the old model of imperialism—where a distinct European nation-state conquered and directly ruled foreign territories—is over. In its place is a new form of sovereignty they call "Empire."

This new Empire has three key characteristics that reframe globalization beyond the center-margin model:

1. It is Decentered and Deterritorialized: Unlike the British or French empires, this new Empire "establishes no territorial center of power and does not rely on fixed boundaries or barriers." There is no single capital city ruling the world. Instead, power is exercised through a "network of powers and counterpowers" – a global web of international institutions, treaties, corporations, and NGOs.

2. It is Inclusive, Not Exclusive: Old imperialism worked by exclusion and oppression, drawing clear lines between colonizer and colonized. Empire, they argue, works by incorporation and modulation. It "manages hybrid identities, flexible hierarchies, and plural exchanges," absorbing difference into its system rather than crushing it under a boot. They compare it to the Roman Empire, which integrated subject peoples rather than simply subjugating them.

3. The U.S. is a Catalyst, Not the Center: Crucially, Hardt and Negri do not simply label the U.S. as the new center. They argue that while the U.S. constitutional project was a blueprint for this inclusive, network-based power, Empire itself is a supranational entity. The U.S. acts "in the name of global right," not merely its own national interest.

For many, this was a liberating theory. It suggested that postcolonial studies, stuck in a binary of resistant margins and hegemonic cores, was ill-equipped to analyze the fluid, interconnected operations of contemporary power. As Loomba notes, supporters like Susie O’Brien and Imre Szeman celebrated Empire for helping us "think past the reinscription of globalisation as a centre/periphery dynamic."

Loomba's Critique: The Lingering Ghosts of Empire

Loomba acknowledges the provocative nature of this thesis but offers a powerful critique, arguing that dismissing the center-margin model is not only premature but dangerous. She does not deny the reality of global networks but insists they operate on a landscape still brutally shaped by colonial history.

1. The "New" Empire Feels Very Old: Loomba points to voices from the Global South that experience contemporary globalization not as a break from history, but as its continuation. She quotes an unemployed Bolivian miner who declares, "Globalization is just another name for submission and domination... We’ve had to live with that here for 500 years." The report details how free-market reforms in Bolivia, enforced by international financial institutions, led to increased poverty and unemployment, mirroring colonial extractive patterns.

2. The Violence of "Market Fundamentalism": Drawing on economist P. Sainath, Loomba argues that the mobility of capital has created its own "market fundamentalism"—a rigid ideology as destructive and cross-border as any religious fundamentalism. This fundamentalism, enforced by institutions like the IMF and World Bank, has led to "imposition, disintegration, underdevelopment and appropriation" in the developing world, intensifying pre-existing global asymmetries.

3. The Return of the Repressed Center: Most damningly, Loomba shows that while theorists like Hardt and Negri shy away from naming a center, the advocates of a "New American Empire" have no such hesitation. She quotes figures like Niall Ferguson and Robert D. Kaplan who openly call for the U.S. to embrace its imperial role, drawing direct and celebratory parallels to the British Empire. This rhetoric, used to justify the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, blatantly re-establishes a very clear center of military and political power.
4. Cultural Racism in a New Guise: Loomba also critiques Hardt and Negri's optimistic view that biological racism has given way to more fluid, cultural notions of difference. Following Etienne Balibar, she argues that this "neo-racism" (e.g., framing Muslim culture as inherently incompatible with the West) can be just as rigid and pernicious. This culturalist logic, dominant after 9/11, directly fuels the engine of the new imperialism.

Conclusion: Not Beyond, But Through

So, how do these theories reframe globalization?

• Hardt and Negri reframe it as a decentered network (Empire), suggesting we need new tools that move beyond the geographic and political binaries of classical imperialism.

• Loomba argues that this network is layered onto and energizes older colonial hierarchies. The center-margin model isn't obsolete; it has been reconfigured. The margin is still exploited, but now by a diffuse network of capital supported by the hardened military core of a U.S.-led hegemony.

For Loomba, the task for postcolonial studies is not to abandon its focus on domination and resistance but to apply its historical lens to these new/old formations. It must trace the connections between the colonial past and the globalized present, revealing how the "borderless world" of capital still very much depends on and creates brutal borders, immense inequality, and new forms of cultural domination.

The resistance, as seen in the Narmada Bachao Andolan case she discusses, must therefore be both fiercely local and intelligently global, understanding how local power elites collaborate with international networks. It proves that the spirit of anti-colonial struggle is not redundant but essential, evolving to meet the challenges of a world where empire no longer always dares to speak its name—but acts nonetheless.

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?

Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist is profoundly illuminated by postcolonial and geopolitical frameworks, particularly the concepts of empire, hybridity, and the post-9/11 climate.

The novel is a sharp critique of empire, not as a historical relic but as a contemporary economic reality. Changez’s initial success at Underwood Samson reveals a new form of imperial power: financial capitalism. The firm’s mantra, “Focus on the fundamentals,” is a directive to ruthlessly extract value, mirroring the extractive logic of classical colonialism (as argued by critics like Anna Hartnell). This neo-imperial system values Changez only for his economic utility as a “native informant” from the periphery, discarding him when geopolitical tensions rise. His eventual rejection of this system is a rejection of an empire that demands assimilation without offering belonging, a theme central to the work of scholars like Edward Said on Orientalism.

This conflict is rooted in hybridity, a concept Homi K. Bhabha theorised. Changez is the ultimate hybrid subject: educated at Princeton, a star in New York finance, yet perpetually marked by his Pakistani origin. His identity is not a smooth synthesis but a site of constant, jarring negotiation. This “third space” becomes untenable after 9/11, as he is forced to choose sides in a Manichean world order that his hybridity inherently challenges. The American gaze, which once saw a model immigrant, now sees only a potential fundamentalist, demonstrating how identity is constructed by the powerful (a key tenet of Said's Orientalism).

This leads directly to the post-9/11 geopolitics of fear and suspicion. The entire narrative is a dramatic embodiment of this new world. The framed dialogue with the silent American listener in a Lahore café recreates the global standoff between the West and the Muslim world. Changez’s monologue critiques American foreign policy and the domestic paranoia that collapses all nuance, reducing complex individuals to monolithic stereotypes. As scholar Stephen Morton notes, the novel exposes how the “War on Terror” created a security state that perpetuates the very divisions it claims to fight.

Thus, through the lens of these frameworks, Hamid’s novel is revealed as a sophisticated critique of how old imperial patterns reassert themselves through global finance and a toxic geopolitical climate, violently foreclosing the possibilities of hybridity and mutual understanding.

Contextual Research

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

Investigation of Mohsin Hamid's Background and the Novel's Timeline

Hamid's Background: The "Global Hybrid"

Mohsin Hamid's personal history is the essential crucible in which The Reluctant Fundamentalist was formed. As detailed in Discontent and Its Civilizations, he is the embodiment of the "global hybrid" he writes about.

• Early Life in Lahore: Born in 1971, Hamid spent much of his childhood in Lahore, Pakistan, giving him a deep connection to and understanding of the country's culture and socio-political landscape.

• Education in the US: He moved to the United States to attend Princeton University (like his protagonist, Changez) and later Harvard Law School. This experience allowed him to not only succeed within the pinnacles of American meritocracy but also to intimately understand its nuances, contradictions, and underlying social codes.

• Professional Life: After graduation, he worked as a management consultant in New York City for McKinsey & Company. This experience provided the firsthand, gritty detail of the high-stakes, hyper-capitalist environment that Underwood Samson (the fictional firm in the novel) is based on.

• Multinational Residency: As noted, he lived in New York just before 9/11, in London during the 7/7 bombings, and in Lahore during the peak of terrorist attacks and U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. This placed him at the epicenter of the "War on Terror" from all three perspectives, deeply informing his worldview.

Timeline of Writing the Novel: Pre and Post 9/11

The conception and writing of The Reluctant Fundamentalist were directly bifurcated by the attacks of September 11, 2001.

1. The Pre-9/11 Novel (c. 2000-2001): Hamid has stated in interviews that he began writing a novel in 2000 about a young Pakistani man in love with a troubled American woman in New York. The initial focus was primarily on the personal: a cross-cultural romance, the experience of immigration, and the protagonist's journey in the corporate world. The title, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, was already conceived, but its meaning was anchored in economic fundamentalism—the ruthless, numbers-driven ideology of global finance.

2. The Post-9/11 Reshaping (2001-2007): The 9/11 attacks acted as a massive historical shockwave that utterly transformed the context of Hamid's unfinished manuscript. The personal story of a Pakistani man in America was now irrevocably politicized. The narrative had to expand to encompass the new, terrifying reality where:

   • Cultural identity became a matter of suspicion and scrutiny.

   • A "clash of civilizations" rhetoric dominated public discourse.

   • The same American society that celebrated meritocracy and diversity began to exhibit insularity and xenophobia.

Hamid set the manuscript aside for several years to process these events. When he returned to it, the story was no longer just a personal one; it was a political thriller, a psychological drama, and a direct commentary on the post-9/11 world. The existing narrative was retrofitted with the looming presence of the attacks and their aftermath, making the date—set in 2000—deeply ironic and tense, as the reader knows the catastrophe that awaits the characters and their world.

How the 9/11 Attacks Reshaped the Narrative

The critical article posits that 9/11 forced Hamid's narrative to evolve from a personal story into a novel that actively challenges the dominant post-9/11 literary and political paradigms.

1. Challenging the "Trauma Narrative" and "Clash of Civilizations" Orthodoxy

As the critical article states, initial Western responses to 9/11 in literature were largely "documents of personal trauma and loss" or works that recapitulated "unproblematic notions of essential cultural difference." Hamid's novel explicitly rejects this.

• Shift in Perspective: Instead of focusing on American trauma, the novel focalizes the experience of the "other"—the Muslim man who becomes a subject of suspicion. It highlights the trauma inflicted by the response to 9/11: the racial profiling, the existential alienation, and the violence of the ensuing wars.

• Deconstructing "Culture Talk": The novel dismantles the reductive idea, as explained by Mahmood Mamdani, that culture is a "tangible essence" that explains politics. Changez is not radicalized by religion but by politics, by empathy for victims of American power, and by the humiliation of being perceived as a threat solely because of his identity. His fundamentalism is economic first, and his reluctance is to the fundamentalism of American empire.

2. Personal Experience Informing Political Critique

Discontent and Its Civilizations shows how Hamid's own life provided the raw material for the novel's most piercing critiques. The experience he recounts of having his article censored to remove Muslim grievances is a microcosm of the "growing American self-censorship" he witnessed. This directly translates into the novel's theme of silenced narratives.

• The "See Something, Say Something" Paranoia: His essay about not reporting a suspicious Pakistani man on the London Tube illustrates a "different sense of responsibility—the responsibility not to act" born from the knowledge of anti-Muslim hysteria. This empathy and solidarity inform Changez's character, making him more than just a political symbol; he is a compassionate individual navigating an impossible situation.

• The Humiliation of Scrutiny: Hamid's experiences at embassies and airports (e.g., JFK) directly feed into Changez’s degrading experiences, such as being singled out for extra security checks. These personal indignities become the building blocks of his political disillusionment.

3. Narrative Form as a Mirror of Post-9/11 Suspicion

The 9/11 attacks demanded a new form, and Hamid responded with a masterful use of the dramatic monologue and unreliable narration.

• Creating Dissonance and Distrust: The one-sided conversation forces the reader into the position of the American listener—unnerved, suspicious, and unable to verify anything they are told. This replicates the very atmosphere of paranoia and uncertainty that defined the post-9/11 world. We are never sure if Changez is a victim, a predator, or a revolutionary.

• The Hoax Confessional: The title sets an expectation of a confession of Islamic radicalization, parodying books like Ed Husain's The Islamist. By subverting this expectation, Hamid critiques the Western demand for Muslims to explain themselves and confess to a radicalism they may not possess. The novel becomes a "confession that implicates its audience," turning the gaze back on the reader and their own assumptions.

4. Rejecting Binaries and Embracing a "Deterritorialized" Worldview

Ultimately, the reshaping of the narrative by 9/11 led to a work that refuses easy answers.

• Beyond East vs. West: The novel argues that "our civilizations do not cause us to clash. No, our clashing allows us to pretend we belong to civilizations." The conflict creates the illusion of separate, monolithic entities. Hamid, through Changez, shows that identities are fluid and permeable: "Something of us is now outside, and something of the outside is now within us."

• A Novel for World Literature: As the critical article concludes, the novel forces the reader to be "deterritorialized." It refuses to be a simple Pakistani novel "writing back" to the West. Instead, it occupies a global space, examining the interconnectedness of power, finance, and violence in the modern world. It records the experiences of those affected by the "reverberations from the response to 9/11" that are often ignored, making it a vital work of world literature that holds a mirror to the "hyper-conscious western world."

In conclusion, 9/11 did not just provide a backdrop for Hamid's novel; it fundamentally reconfigured its DNA. It transformed a story of personal ambition and romance into a complex, unsettling, and essential political and psychological inquiry into identity, power, and the perils of empire in the 21st century. The novel is a direct product of Hamid's unique background as a "global hybrid" who experienced the seismic shift of 9/11 from multiple, conflicting vantage points.

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

Mohsin Hamid’s initial conception of The Reluctant Fundamentalist—begun before 9/11—focused on a personal story of migration, ambition, and cross-cultural romance within the world of global finance. However, the 9/11 attacks fundamentally reshaped the narrative, transforming it into a urgent political and psychological thriller. This temporal shift is profoundly significant: it allowed Hamid to recontextualize his protagonist’s identity crisis within the sudden, stark climate of post-9/11 suspicion, xenophobia, and renewed American nationalism. The novel’s pre-9/11 setting creates dramatic irony, as the reader anticipates the impending catastrophe that will shatter the protagonist’s American dream. By integrating his pre-existing draft with the new global reality, Hamid challenges the simplistic “clash of civilizations” narrative. Instead, he presents a nuanced exploration of how geopolitical ruptures violently redefine personal identity, making the novel a crucial intervention in post-9/11 literature that critiques both Western imperialism and the reductive stereotypes of Muslim identity.

B. While-Watching Activities

1. Character Conflicts & Themes

• 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.
• Changez and the American photographer (Erica): Watch how objectification and emotional estrangement are depicted visually and thematically.
• Profit vs. knowledge/book: Look for cinematic metaphors of commodification versus literary or cultural value (e.g., scenes in Istanbul).

Answer : 

Mira Nair's 2012 film adaptation of Mohsin Hamid's novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, transposes complex literary themes into a rich visual and narrative language. The film uses its cinematic form—mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, and symbolism—to explore profound conflicts that define the protagonist, Changez Khan's, identity crisis. This analysis will deconstruct the three core conflicts you've outlined.

1. Generational Split: Corporate Modernity vs. Poetic-Rooted Values

This conflict is the film's central ideological battleground, presented not through explicit debate but through a powerful visual and symbolic juxtaposition.

• Research/Theoretical Lens: This tension can be analyzed through the lens of Postcolonial Theory, specifically Homi K. Bhabha's concepts of mimicry and hybridity. Changez's journey is one of initially aspiring to perfect mimicry of the American corporate archetype, only to have that identity destabilized by the reassertion of his native, "poetic" cultural heritage.

• Cinematic Depiction & Symbolism:

  • The "Fundamentalist" Tool: The valuation tool taught by Underwood Samson ("Focus on the fundamentals") becomes a metaphor for the Western capitalist gaze that reduces complex entities (companies, cultures, people) to their mere monetary value. The cold, sleek, blue-and-steel aesthetic of the New York offices contrasts sharply with the warm, textured, and chaotic visuals of Lahore.

  • The Symbol of the Watch: Changez's expensive watch, a symbol of his success at Underwood Samson, is explicitly rejected in a key scene. He throws it away, a powerful act of discarding the metric of time and value imposed by the corporate West. This act is a visual renunciation of the generational push towards Western-defined "success" that his family once admired.

  • Narrative Tension: The entire film is structured as a flashback, framed by Changez's conversation with Bobby Lincoln in Lahore. This narrative structure itself embodies the split: the older, wiser, and disillusioned Changez (rooted in Lahore) recounts and critiques the story of his younger self (the corporate aspirant in New York). The tension is built into the film's very fabric.

2. Changez and Erica: Objectification and Emotional Estrangement

The relationship with Erica (Kate Hudson) is the primary emotional vehicle for exploring Changez's experience of alienation and objectification in America.

• Research/Theoretical Lens: Erica functions as an allegory for America itself. Her name, Erica, is a homophone for "America." Her character is not just a love interest but a symbol of a nation that is beautiful, alluring, but also melancholic, self-absorbed, and trapped in its own past (her obsession with her ex-boyfriend Chris, a symbol of a pre-9/11 America).

• Cinematic Depiction & Thematics:

  • Visual Objectification: The cinematography often frames Erica through a soft, romantic, almost dreamlike lens, objectifying her as an ideal. Conversely, Changez is frequently shot looking at her, his gaze filled with a desire not just for her, but for the acceptance into the world she represents.

  • Thematic Estrangement: Erica's emotional unavailability mirrors America's inability to truly see or accept Changez after 9/11. His famous line, "I was looked at like a monster," is foreshadowed in their intimate relationship. When he tries to connect with her, she asks him to pretend to be Chris—a literal demand for him to erase his identity and mimic another. This is a profound visual and thematic representation of the emotional estrangement and conditional acceptance he faces.

3. Profit vs. Knowledge: The Commodification of Culture

This conflict moves beyond the personal to critique a global system where cultural and historical value is subsumed by economic value.

• Research/Theoretical Lens: This theme resonates with Marxist cultural criticism, which examines how capitalism commodifies everything, including art and heritage, turning use-value and cultural-value into mere exchange-value.

• Cinematic Metaphors (The Istanbul Sequence):

  • The Istanbul business trip is the crucible for this theme. Underwood Samson is hired to value a publishing house, not for its literary output or cultural significance (its "books"), but for its asset value to be sold off ("profit").

  • The Key Metaphor - The Book: The aging publisher hands Changez a beautiful, rare book. He says it is "priceless," a term that in the cultural sphere means its value is beyond economics. Changez, still in his corporate mindset, instinctively translates this into a market valuation, asking, "What would it fetch at auction?" This moment of cognitive dissonance is captured in a close-up on Changez's face, realizing he is applying the "fundamentalist" tool to something sacred.

  • The Cinematic Pivot: The publisher's defiant, dignified stance—prioritizing the legacy of knowledge over a maximum sale price—becomes the catalyst for Changez's awakening. The film uses the visual grandeur of Istanbul, a city that embodies the layering of history and commerce, as the perfect backdrop for this ideological clash. It is here that he begins to see his own complicity in a system that reduces the world's rich tapestry to a balance sheet.

In conclusion, Mira Nair's film masterfully uses its cinematic language to explore these layered conflicts. It moves beyond a simple political narrative to offer a tragic portrait of a man caught between worlds, whose personal relationships and professional life become the microcosm for a much larger global clash of values.

References: 

“Discontent and Its Civilizations.” The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, 9 Mar. 2015, www.thecairoreview.com/book-reviews/discontent-and-its-civilizations/.

Huggan, Graham. "The Reluctant Fundamentalist and the Post-9/11 Novel." Journal of Postcolonial Writing, vol. 47, no. 3, July 2011, pp. 297–308. Taylor & Francis Online, doi:10.1080/17449855.2011.557184.