Education
- Ph.D. in English Literature and Postcolonial Knowledge, Australian National University (2005) — Dissertation: Intellectuals and Specificities: A Study of Postcolonial Knowledge Production by Ziauddin Sardar, Akbar S. Ahmed, and Sara Suleri; Examiners: Bill Ashcroft, Anisur Rehman
- Postdoctoral Fellowship (Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter), Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, Germany (2006–2007)
- M.A. (Honours), University of Wollongong, Australia (1997) — Dissertation: Vilas Sarang and the Margins of Postcoloniality
Research Interests
- Translation studies
- Postcoloniality
- The figure of the postcolonial intellectual
- Contemporary Pakistani creative writing
Biography
Dr. Saeed Ur Rehman has been Associate Professor of Comparative Humanities at Habib University since 2023, and is Chair-Elect of the university’s Faculty Senate, a role beginning August 2025, having served as a Faculty Senate member since 2024 contributing to shared governance, strategic budgeting, academic-freedom safeguards, and faculty-welfare reforms.
Before Habib, Dr. Rehman was Associate Professor and Head of the Department of English Language & Literature at the University of Lahore (2020–2023, Head from 2021), managing five degree programs and ensuring HEC compliance. He earlier served as an Expert Member on the Faculty Selection Board at the University of the Punjab (2019–2021), led the HEC National Curriculum Review Sub-Committee on Literature that finalized Pakistan’s national BS and MPhil literature syllabus in 2017 (still in use today), and was Head of the Department of English at Forman Christian College, Lahore (2017), following an earlier stint as Associate Professor there (2015–2017). He holds a Ph.D. from the Australian National University (2005) and completed postdoctoral research at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin (2006–2007).
Dr. Rehman is an HEC-approved Ph.D. supervisor and has authored or edited several books, including Narrating Pakistan: A Selection of Contemporary Stories (Ilqa/Readings, Lahore), now in its second edition after the first sold out, adopted on syllabi at three Pakistani universities, and reviewed internationally including by Muneeza Shamsie. At Habib, he founded and mentors “The Writing Circle,” an undergraduate research and creative-writing collective, and has introduced innovative assessment methods including a “public-manifesto” project replacing conventional term papers in his Public Intellectuals course, which recorded a 4.83/5 course rating and 100% student recommendation in Spring 2025. He is currently working on a debut novel (projected completion 2026) and editing an anthology of Habib student creative writing.
Selected Publications
- Narrating Pakistan: A Selection of Contemporary Stories (2nd ed.), Ilqa/Readings, Lahore, 2023/2024.
- “Translation, (post)Coloniality, and the Work of Vilas Sarang,” Pakistan Languages and Humanities Review, 6(3), 2022.
- “The Figure of the Postcolonial Intellectual,” Journal of Contemporary Poetics, 6(1), 2022.
- “Modernity and Interpellated Native Subjectivity in South Asia,” Journal of Contemporary Poetics, 2(2), 2018.
- Co-authored with Ahmer Naqvi, Apolitical or Depoliticised? Pakistan’s Youth and Politics, Jinnah Institute, Islamabad, 2013.
- Co-authored with Afiya S. Zia, The Impact of Educational Policies on the Religious Minorities of Pakistan: 1947–2010, SAFHR, Karachi, 2010.
Honors, Awards & Memberships
- HEC-Approved Ph.D. Supervisor, 2022–present
- Member, Modern Languages Association (MLA), 2023–present
- Member, North-Eastern MLA, 2021–present
- Chair, National Subcommittee for Literature Curriculum (elected 2016; served 2017–2021)
- ANU Vice-Chancellor’s Scholarship (Ph.D.), 1998
- Australian Government Postgraduate Award for Doctoral Studies, 1998
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