At Habib University, we believe that reading is not just a recreational activity, but a habit that adds to your intellect, regardless of whether you are a student, staff or faculty member. Our faculty members have been adding to their collection, books that are not only course related, but also fictional novels and comics of all genres and languages. We asked nine faculty members, both from the school of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AHSS) as well as the School of Science and Engineering (SSE), to tell us about the books that they have been reading, or planning to read.
Dr. Markus Heidingsfelder is a media theorist and documentary filmmaker, teaching at the Communication & Design department at HU. His films and his research in communication media and popular culture have brought him worldwide acclaim.
- The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa
- The First Man by Albert Camus
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
- The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche
- Submission by Michel Houellebecq
Dr. Noman Baig is an anthropologist, with an interest in researching Branchless Banking. He is an Assistant Professor for the Social Development and Policy program at AHSS.
- Bulleh Shah’s Kalam by Dr. Amjad Ali Bhatti
- Shah Jo Risalo by Shah Abdul Latif
- Aqs-e-Babu by Sultan Bahu
- Ethics by Spinoza
- Masnavi by Jalal ud din Rumi
Dr. Nicki Saroca is a feminist sociologist, teaching Sociology and Gender Studies for over 11 years, and will continue to do so at HU. Her aim is to integrate her research with community service; she has worked with several NGOs in Australia and the Philippines.
- A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseni
- Feminist Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader by Reina Lewis
Dr. Waqar Saleem is the Program Director for Computer Science. His interests lie in querying 3D shape repositories and improving on learning-based surface reconstruction from scattered data. As a father, he also enjoys reading books to his children.
- The Foundation Series – Forward the Foundation by Isaac Asimov
- Alice in Puzzleland: A Carrollian Tale for Children Under Eighty by Raymond Smullyan
- Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter
- Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen
- The Book of Opposites by John David Morley
Dr. Severine Minot is an Assistant Professor for the Social Development and Policy program at AHSS. She is a sociologist, with a focus on migration and cultural studies. She is currently working on her book titled ‘Working with Immigrants: Cross-Cultural Brokering, Adaption and the Transformative Habitus’.
- Brokering Belonging: Chinese in Canada’s Exclusion Era, 1885-1945 by Lisa Rose Mar
- Diasporic Subjectivity and Cultural Brokering in Post-Colonial Literature by Igor Maver
- Cross-Cultural Differences in a Global Survey of World Views by Saucier et al
Dr. Aaron Mulvany is an Assistant Professor at AHSS and Director of Academic Performance & Summer Programs. He has taught many different subjects, from history to music to folklore and anthropology. His current research focuses on disaster and policy anthropology.
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margret Atwood
- The Island by Aldous Huxley
- The Apotheosis of Captain Cook by Gananath Obeyesekere
- Collective Imaginings by Moira Gatens
Muhammad Gulraiz Khan is a Lecturer for the Communication Studies and Design program at AHSS. He completed his MFA in Trans-disciplinary Design from Parsons, NY. His interest lies in cities and their systems, and is currently working on a research project titled ‘The Dumb City’, taking a look at the formal and informal transit systems in Karachi.
- Between the World and me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Emergence by Steven Johnson
Dr. Syeda Saleha Raza is an Assistant Professor for the Computer Science program at SSE. Her Ph.D focused on Artificial Intelligence; she applied imitation learning to build collaborative strategies for a team of autonomous agents.
- Jannat kay Pattay by Namra Ahmed
- Doing Better Good by Will Macaskill
- Akhuwat ka Safar by Amjad Saqib
Dr. Nauman Naqvi is the Director of the Liberal Core and an Assistant Professor at AHSS. His aim is to combine the histories of both regional and Western humanities and social thought to cultivate a critically strenuous universalism in the students of Habib University. He is currently writing a research article on Brexit, titled ‘An Apartheid Anthropocene’, which discusses the historical superiority of the West.
- An Inquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns by Bruno Latour
