Share Profile
SHIZZA NADEEM MALIK
Aspiration Statement
I am passionate about applying engineering skills towards research and development. I enjoy working at the intersection of hardware and software, specifically programming, embedded systems, control theory, and robotics. Beyond these, I am always open to new opportunities and avenues in the spirit of continuous learning.
Core Skills
- Creative Content Production
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Marketing Strategy
- MS Excel
- Powerpoint
- MS Word
- Ethnographic Research
- Qualitative Data Collection and Analysis
Experience
Leadership / Meta-curricular
- Prevention of Sexual Harassment Committee in Habib University’s Student Government - Elected as a Senate Member and Chair
- Habib’s Feminist Collective (h-fem) - Club President/Chapter Lead
- Aurat March - Organizer
- HU Runway Radio - Head Content Writer/Operations Manager
- Volunteered with NGOs such as The Citizen Foundation, The Little Art and DreamCatcher Pakistan for teaching at summer camps, marketing and outreach and organizing exhibitions
Internship / Volunteer Work
- Logicose - SEO Content Marketing Specialist
- Rural Support Programmes Network - Monitoring & Evaluation Officer
- Legal Aid Society - Research Associate
- Sindh Commission - Research & Communications Intern
- The City School - Elementary Teacher
- Sindh Commission - Women-Research Intern
- Habib University - Purple Ink Review - Managing Editor
- The Citizens Foundation - Supervisor
Publications / Creative Projects
- The Stories Untold: Published as one of Pakistan’s Top 15 fiction writers in the category of short stories as part of an annual competition by the publication forum Daastan in their first year.
- Conducting research on the prevalence of sexual harassment in higher educational institutes in Karachi with co-researcher Syeda Tayyaba Mahmood. This research project is being pursued in collaboration with the Sindh Commission on the Status of Women.
Final Year Project
Project Title
Queering The Tawaif: A Historical Exploration of the Tradition From Pre-Colonial India to the 21st Century
Description
This paper queers the colonial categorization of the tawaif as a “dancing girl and/or prostitute” and in doing so unflattens or broadens this category to reflect a more accurate representation of the tawaif tradition of India. Through an exploration of South Asian literature, film, and ethnographic descriptions of the courtesan and her spaces, I will illustrate that the tawaif wielded significant power, status and influence, which was used to preserve indigenous arts and culture, and resist imperial forces in colonial India. I will also trace the acclaim of prominent tawaifs in the Indian entertainment industry to argue that the tawaif was a socio-political agent, much more than merely a musician, dancer or a sex worker. This paper will also argue that the categorization of the tawaif as a prostitute is the result of imported British values and sensibilities being reductively applied onto the tradition and its spaces of cultivation – notions that continue to exist in South Asia.