About ten years ago, my former department went through a collective soul-searching in the process of defining our departmental mission. There were two competing visions of literary studies that became prominently mobilized during our faculty meetings and faculty retreats: one [...]
During my recent visit to Pakistan, I was finally able to procure the unabridged version of Tilism Hoshruba. My brother, an avid reader and collector of all things rare, was able to order a seven-volume reprint edition for me. Republished [...]
Developed by Dr. Jenny Caneen Raja This assignment gives students agency to create and answer their own questions for any required literary reading (and it can be tweaked for non-fiction). I've used this approach (i.e., Flipped Classroom) to in-class discussions [...]
This is the final essay in a series of four essays about academic publishing.
Academic Articles: Writing the First Draft Needless to say, there are plenty of good books on writing academic articles, especially written by composition theorists and scholars, that can help you learn the art of crafting the first draft of [...]
I understand that there are hundreds of books that explain the mechanics of writing academic articles. My aim here is not to dwell on the mechanics, but to rather give you some basic ideas about the process of choosing [...]
Why Publish? Remember, humanities publication is always a conversation with past and contemporary scholars in your field of study. Most graduate students have to take a writing course in their first year. The main purpose of such courses is to teach [...]
Book Proposal. (Note: This is a modified version of my book proposal for my book on ISIS. While most publishers would use a similar format, please do check the exact requirements of your publisher: you can always find the specifics [...]
(Note: This is a modified version of an article published in Friday Times, Lahore) We often hear, in public and private conversations, that Pakistani culture and politics will become better with the increase in access to education. This is nothing [...]
(This is an excerpt from the conclusion of my recent book: ISIS: Ideology, Symbolics and Counter Narratives.) There are some brilliantly researched books on ISIS, I consulted most of them, but in this brief volume I have attempted to answer [...]