Najeeb Jan
Education
- Ph.D. in Modern South Asian & Middle Eastern History, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2010) — Dissertation Committee: Juan Cole & Nicholas Dirks (Joint Chairs), Alexander Knysh, Barbara Metcalf
- M.A. in Islamic Studies, Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1993)
- B.A. in Philosophy (Major), Computer Science/Physics (Minor), Rhodes College, Memphis, TN (1991)
Research Interests
- Cultural and political geography; historical and political thought; militarization, nationalism, and terrorism in South Asia; the genealogy of the alliance between the Pakistan army and orthodox sectarian schools within Sunni Islam and its entanglement with regional and global geopolitics.
Biography
Dr. Najeeb Jan has been Associate Professor of Comparative Humanities at Habib University since 2020, teaching courses including Pakistan & Modern South Asia, What is Power, Seminar on Heidegger, Senior Capstone Seminar on Violence, What is Modernity, Hikma, and Postcolonial Islam.
Before Habib, Dr. Jan was Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Colorado, Boulder (2010–2018), focusing on South Asia, political Islam, and cultural geography, where he advised multiple Ph.D. and master’s committees and undergraduate honors theses. Earlier, he was an Instructor in Human & World Geography at Colorado (2006–2009), an Academic Year Lecturer in South Asian History at the University of Santa Clara (2005–2006), a Visiting Lecturer at Madison College, Michigan State University (2004–2005), and held various lectureships and teaching assistantships at the University of Michigan (1993–2003). He completed his Ph.D. in Modern South Asian & Middle Eastern History at the University of Michigan in 2010, co-chaired by Juan Cole and Nicholas Dirks, defending his dissertation, “Pakistan, The Deoband ’Ulama and the Biopolitics of Islam,” after eighteen months of archival and ethnographic fieldwork in Pakistan.
Dr. Jan’s 2019 book, The Metacolonial State: Pakistan, Critical Ontology and the Biopolitics of Islam (Blackwell Press, Antipode Series), remains his major published monograph. He is currently completing a second book manuscript, Critical Ontology: World, Being, Power (projected 2026), alongside an in-progress article, “Agamben’s Critical Ontology: Taking Place,” planned for Antipode, and a collaborative article with Dr. Nauman Naqvi on Sufism and biopower in Pakistan. In 2024, he organized and chaired a panel on the “Biopolitics of Blasphemy” at the Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and served as Master of Ceremonies for Habib’s 8th Yohsin Lecture and its 6th Postcolonial Higher Education Conference (2023).
Honors and Awards
- IRISS’s Project Society, “Navigating the Politics and Ethics of Drones,” 2016
- Innovative SEED Grant Program; Co-PI on “Transnational Discourses of Islamic Community,” University of Colorado, 2007
- US Department of Education UISFL Course Development Award, 2006
- American Institute of Pakistan Studies, Short Term Fellowship, 2003
- Advanced Studies Center Fellowship, International Institute, University of Michigan, 2001–2002
- American Institute of Pakistan Studies, Dissertation Research Grant, 2000–2001
- SSRC International Dissertation Research Fellowship, 1997–1998
Selected Publications
- The Metacolonial State: Pakistan, Critical Ontology and the Biopolitics of Islam (Antipode Series, Blackwell Press, 2019).
- Lee, S.O., Jan, N., & Wainwright, J. “Agamben, Postcoloniality, and Sovereignty in South Korea.” Antipode, 46(3), 2014.
- “What Will Pakistan Look Like in 2023,” ABC-CLIO World Geography Resources, 2013.
- Jan, N. and V. Zamindar. “The Battlefields of Karachi: Ethnicity, Violence & The State.” The Journal of the International Institute, University of Michigan, 4(1), 1996.
Professional Service
- Reviewer for Political Geography, Antipode, Annals of the AAG, Comparative Studies in Society & History, Progress in Human Geography
- Assistant Editor, Comparative Studies in Society & History (2003–2004) and International Journal of Middle East Studies (2002)
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