Education

PhD in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory (2024)
University of Pennsylvania 

A.M. in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory 
University of Pennsylvania

M.A. in English Literature
McGill University

B.A. in English Literature (First Class Honours)
McGill University 

Teaching

Courses Taught:

COML 015: Writing the Self: Life-Writing, Fiction, Representation (Spring 2021)
COML 102: Narratives of Memory (Fall 2020)
COML 061: Global Fictions (Fall 2020)
COML 191: World Literature: Writings and Rewritings (Spring 2020)

Courses Assisted:

COML 100: The Global Novel (Fall 2019)
ENGL 320: Postcolonial Literature (Spring 2018)
ENGL 227: The American Novel After 1945 (Fall 2017)

Syllabi for taught courses available on request.

Honours
& Awards

Stallybrass Prize in the History of Material Texts
April 2023
Awarded for the best graduate essay on “how texts take material form and circulate in the world.”

Penn Presidential Fellowship
May 2021
Awarded a three year, highly competitive fellowship to form part of an inaugural cohort “representing the most exceptional scholars from across all of Penn’s PhD programs.”

Sachs Program for Arts Innovation Grant
April 2021
Awarded competitive funding from the Sachs Foundation to support the translation of a contemporary Urdu novel into English.

Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching
March 2021
Nominated by my students and thereafter selected by a faculty and student committee from the School of Arts and Sciences.

AIPS Virtual Programming Grant
December 2020
Awarded in support of my research into two literary journals: Shabkhūn and Shāhrāh.

AIPS Short-Term Research Grant
May 2020
Awarded to pursue research on Urdu literary journals and Pakistani literary culture. 

Andrew W. Mellon Summer Research Fellowship 
April 2020
Awarded by the Price Lab for Digital Humanities to research lay readers of World Literature.

Florence Tan Moeson Fellowship
February 2020
Awarded to pursue research on Urdu literary journal culture at the Asian Division of the Library of Congress.

Benjamin Franklin Fellowship
September 2018
Standard five-year award for the pursuit of a doctoral degree at the University of Pennsylvania. 

The Postcolonial Studies Association (PSA) Postgraduate Essay Prize 
June 2018
Awarded to my Masters Research Project for making an “innovative and timely contribution” to Postcolonial Studies.

Graduate Research and Travel (GREAT) Award
October 2017
Received $800 in funding from McGill’s Faculty of Arts to present at the Annual Conference of South Asian Studies in Madison, Wisconsin. 

Scarlet Key Award
April 2017
Inducted into McGill’s honors society in recognition of my work with Harf – A Journal of South Asian Studies, for engaging McGill and the Montreal community politically and intellectually with South Asian literatures and society. 

Full Tuition Scholarship – SASLI
April 2017
Awarded on the basis of academic excellence and financial need, this $5000 scholarship allowed me to study Elementary Bengali at the South Asian Summer Language Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

SSMU Publication of the Year Award
April 2017
Awarded to Harf– A Journal of South Asian Studies for excellence in editorial content and design, and for its comprehensive contribution to the McGill community. 

Differential Fee Award
August 2016
Received a merit-based award of $14,000, via a differential fee waiver, to begin my M.A. in English at McGill University.  

Arts Research Internship Award (ARIA)
May 2015
Awarded $4000 to work on The Noon Meem Rashed Archive with Professor Pasha M. Khan at the Institute of Islamic Studies.

Vladimir J. Elgart Scholarship
September 2013
Awarded $3000 for the demonstration of leadership and academic potential upon admission into McGill University.

Presentations

Invited Talks:

“Friends, Caretakers, Countrymen: Shabḳhūn and the Reconciliations of Urdu Modernism.” The Magazine and World Literature Seminar Series. 19th March 2021.

“Urdu Journals and the World: Shabḳhūn.” Hindi/Urdu Working Group of the Postcolonial Print Cultures Collective. 20th July 2020.

“Urdu Journals and the World: Adabī Dunyā.” Hindi/Urdu Working Group of the Postcolonial Print Cultures Collective. 6th July 2020.

Conferences:

“Through the Lens of Urdu: Reading World Literature in Adabī Dunyā.” Worldly Magazines: Form, Circulation, and Cultural Change at the Université de Lausanne. 1-2nd December 2022.

“No Country for Errant Pens: Muhammad Hasan Askari and the National Writer in Early Pakistan.” Annual Conference on South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 20th-24th October 2021.

“Translating Qazi Abdul Ghaffar’s Naqsh-e Firang.“ Annual Conference on South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 20th-24th October 2021.

“World Literature and the Literary Formations of the Postcolony.” American Comparative Literature Association. 8th-11th April 2021.

“Jadīdīyat in the Time of Journals: 20th Century Journal Culture and the Urdu Literary Formation.” Annual Conference on South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 15th-18th October 2019.

“War of the Words: Narrativizing Partition in Pakistani State Textbooks and Qurratulain Hyder’s River of Fire.” Annual Conference on South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 10th-14th October 2018.

“A Tale of Two Cities: Urdu, English, and the Struggle to Represent Lahore in World Literature.” Annual Conference on South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 10th-14th October 2018.

“The Nation and its Literatures: A Comparative Approach to Reading Postcolonial Texts.” McGill English Graduate Students Association MA Colloquium. 13th March 2018.

“The Reluctant Comparatists: Towards a Reconceptualization of Pakistani Literature.” Literary Exchanges Conference at McGill University. 16th-17th February 2018.

“Two Solitudes: Pakistani Fiction and the Politics of Location in the World Literature Debate.” Annual Conference on South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 26th-28th October 2017.

“Where in the World? Pakistan, English, and the World Literature Debate.” SASLI Annual Student Conference at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 26th June 2017.  

“Pakistani Literature and the Case for Comprador Fiction.” McGill English Graduate Students Association MA Colloquium. 10th March 2017.

“Burning for Freedom: Angārē and Progressive Politics in Colonial India.” Annual Conference on South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 20-23rd October 2016.

“An Overview of the Noon Meem Rashed Archive.” McGill Institute of Islamic Studies. Poster Presentation. 15th January 2016.

“I Pray Therefore I Am: The Muslim Self in Pakistani Textbooks.” University of Toronto Biennial Conference on South Asian Religions. 8-9th October 2015.

Service

Conferences Organized:

Worldly Magazines: Form, Circulation, and Cultural Change. Université de Lausanne. December 2022.

Placing Pakistan: Space, Time, and the Everyday. University of Pennsylvania. February 2022.

Troubling Translation(s) Conference. University of Pennsylvania. February 2020.

Talks Organized:

Prof. Benjamin Baer. “Education Before Auschwitz.” University of Pennsylvania. December 2019.

Prof. Mehr Afshan Farooqi. “The Postcolonial Mind: Urdu Modernism, Mysticism, and Muhammad Hasan Askari.” University of Pennsylvania. April 2019.

Prof. Henry Schwarz. “Making It Real: True Crime in the Gypsy Thieves’ Ghetto.” McGill University. September 2017. 

Prof. Ngugi wa’ Thiong’o. “The Dialectical Imagination: The World in the Postcolonial.” McGill University. April 2017.

Prof. Syed Akbar Hyder: “One in Grief: Aesthetics of Mourning and the Story of Hind.” McGill University. November 2016.

Aruna Roy. “On Culture and Democracy in India.” McGill University. October 2016.

Panels Chaired:

“Translation as Contact: Between States and Institutions.” Troubling Translation(s) Conference at the University of Pennsylvania. February 2020. 

“Art for Our Sake: The Aesthetics of Decolonization in Postcolonial South Asia.” Annual Conference on South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. October 2017.

“Mapping the Nation: Literature from Pakistan.” Brave New World: Revisiting Globalization in Literature and Culture. McGill University. February 2017.

Reading Groups Organized:

“Mapping the Nation(s): Parallel Cinema in South Asia.” McGill University. Winter 2017. 

“Reading Globalization in South Asian Literature.” McGill University. Fall 2016.