American Institute of Pakistan Studies

Fatima Quraishi's new book titled "Palimpsests Past and Present: The Saints and Sultans of the Makli Necropolis, 1380-1660" will be published this October!

You can find it in the UNC Press series "Islamic Civilizations and Muslim Networks" edited by Carl Ernst and Bruce Lawrence. The book is now available for pre-order on the UNC Press site. You can use code 01SOCIAL30 at checkout for a 30% discount!

https://uncpress.org/9781469697628/palimpsests-past-and-present/

Congratulations to both Dr. Nathan Tabor (Western Michigan University) and Dr. Ilyas Chattha (LUMS) for receiving the 2026 AIPS Book Prize! This year, the AIPS Book Prize Committee selected two books for the annual award.

The committee agreed that Tabor’s book, City of Lyrics: Ordinary Poets and Islamicate Popular Culture in Early Modern Delhi, is an “impressive study of the emerging culture of poetic gatherings (mushāʿirahs) in eighteenth- century Delhi that demonstrates how sprawling networks of “ordinary poets” shaped Urdu as a rising literary language.” Tabor offers “compelling evidence for the ways in which poetic exchanges helped to anchor friendships and also fueled rivalries, spurring poets to constantly innovate and create new poetic forms.”

As noted by the committee, Chattha’s book, Citizens to Traitors: Bengali Internment in Pakistan, 1971-1974, “recovers the silenced history of elite and ordinary residents of Pakistan who were transformed by the 1971 Bangladesh war from rights-bearing citizens to ethnically marked ‘others’, now suspected traitors, able to be stripped of political and human rights and subjected to indefinite internment.”

You can read the Book Prize Committee’s full summaries on our website: https://pakistanstudies.org/2026/06/03/aips-book-prize-2026/

To read more about these books and to order your own copy, please see the publishers’ webpages:
City of Lyrics: https://uncpress.org/9781469690223/city-of-lyrics/
Citizens to Traitors: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/citizens-to-traitors/7894AABEB9381EE75D50D1EE472C3344

AIPS member Abdul Aijaz's publication titled "Politics and Poetics of Water and Hydrosocial Crisis in Punjab" is now accessible on Antipode!

This essay explores the interconnections between eco-aesthetics, narratives of development, and hydropolitics to better understand the twin material and narrative crises of water in Pakistan.

Politics and Poetics of Water and Hydrosocial Crisis in Punjab This essay explores the interconnections between eco-aesthetics, narratives of development, and hydropolitics to better understand the twin material and narrative crises of water in Pakistan. Challen...

Are you an AIPS member who is presenting at an upcoming conference? Check out AIPS's Travel Grants! The next deadline to apply is June 15.

AIPS Travel Grants fund travel to scholarly conferences for the presentation of papers or organization of panels on topics relevant to Pakistan Studies.

*Please review our website for more information on eligibility*
https://pakistanstudies.org/conference-travel-grants/

AIPS member Dr. Tahir Naqvi was recently promoted to full professor at the Department of Sociology/Anthropology at Trinity University!

He teaches courses in anthropology and sociology, with a focus on South Asian and Muslim world studies. Check out his recent book, ”Questioning Migrants: Ethnic Nationalism at the Limits of Pakistan” (Cambridge University Press, 2024).

Questioning Migrants Cambridge Core - Social and Cultural Anthropology - Questioning Migrants

AIPS Pakistan collaborated with the Pakistan Academy of Letters, Islamabad to host an event titled "Pakistan's Heritage and Cultural Conservation: Challenges, Strategies, and the Way Forward" earlier this month.

This event aimed to create a platform for dialogue, knowledge-sharing, and policy-oriented discussion on heritage and culture conservation in Pakistan. It bridged academia and policy by engaging stakeholders involved in conservation, legislation, and tourism, strengthened Pakistan Studies’ global relevance by connecting it with international heritage debates, and enhanced public engagement by producing knowledge that informs curricula, public discourse, and a more culturally grounded understanding of national identity.

Last month, AIPS signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Government Sadiq College Women University Bahawalpur!

Present at the signing were Dr. Aalia Sohail Khan (AIPS Pakistan Director), Prof. Dr. Shazia Anjum (Vice Chancellor, Government Sadiq College Women University Bahawalpur), and Prof. Mussarat Azhar (Director of External Linkages).

Our friends at UC-Berkeley's Institute for South Asia Studies are hiring an Associate Director!

Please check out the job description and share with your colleagues:

Associate Director - Institute for South Asia Studies University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!