Dr. Afroz Taj

Office Hours: On leave
Zoom Link
CV

Research

My research and teaching center around South Asian media, with emphasis on the film industry and television.  My book, The Court of Indra and the Rebirth of North Indian Drama, explores the origins of the Urdu-Hindi musical theater in mid-nineteenth-century Lucknow.  My current book project focuses on the dynamics of the transition from the Parsi theater to early sound films in the 1920s and 1930s.  I am also interested in the aesthetics of cinema, filmmaking techniques and technologies, and the history of Bollywood.  While researching the history of Indian cinema I began to collect past issues of Shama magazine; in my next project I will trace the impact of Shama on South Asian popular culture, including its visual and verbal constructions of gender identity in twentieth-century India and Pakistan.

I am also a creative writer: I have written, published, and recited my ghazals, geet, dohe, and short stories in Urdu and Hindi.  Over the past ten years I have undertaken to film interviews with important literary figures of South Asia, and I have made a number of short films in conjunction with the Door Into Hindi and Darvazah language-learning websites.  My interest in media has enabled me to pioneer the use of new technologies and multimedia resources in language teaching.

Awards

Outstanding presentation, Conference on Pakistan, South Asia, and Muslim Societies, International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan, March 6-7, 2012
UNC Course Enrichment Grant for First Year Seminar “Media Masala”
University Research Council Grant: “Surveying and Preserving Shama Magazine”
Institute for the Arts and Humanities Fellowship, Fall 2011
Photo “Face-Off” won Center for Global Initiatives Photo Contest and was used for the month of July in the 2010 CGI Calendar.
Gertrude M. Cox Special Merit Award for Innovative Excellence in Teaching and Learning with Technology, North Carolina State University, 2005

Publications

The Court of Indra and the Rebirth of North Indian Drama, Delhi: Anjuman-e Taraqqi Urdu, 2006.

Darvazah: A Door Into Urdu: Web-Mounted Elementary Urdu Language Course, U.S. Department of Education, IEPS, 2009. http://taj.chass.ncsu.edu/urdu

A Door Into Hindi: Web-Mounted Elementary Hindi Language Course, U.S. Department of Education, IEPS,  2003. http://taj.chass.ncsu.edu

Urdu Through Hindi: Nastaliq with the Help of Devanagari, New Delhi: Rangmahal Press, 1997.

Tanhaiyan, Ankahi and Ahsas Companion, New Delhi: Monumental Publishers: Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu (Hind), 1996.

“Mirza Hadi Ruswa's Laila Majnun” in Southeast Review of Asian Studies, Volume 33, 2011.

“Amrika Vala” (Hindi short story) in Hindi Chetna, Year 12, Issue 45, January 2010, pp. 27-29, Toronto: Hindi  Pracharini Sabha, 2010.

Poetry (ghazals, geet, dohe) in Hindi Chetna, Toronto: Hindi Pracharini Sabha, 2007 to present.

“Two Anarkalis: Saghar Nizami’s Dream Drama and the Deconstruction of the Parsi Theatre,” in Southeast Review of Asian Studies, Vol. 32 (2010), pp. 178-94.

“A Door Into Hindi: Teaching Language and Culture in Cyberspace” in Home and the World: South Asia in Transition, Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006.

“Naghma-e Aligarh” (Ode to Aligarh University) poem on CD: Caravan: Songs of Aligarh University, Aligarh, India, 2012.

“Sachche ka bol bala” qawwali in Islamic Qawwalis vol. 1 (audio CD), India: INRECO, 2007.

“Ramzan ki barkat” qawwali in Islamic Qawwalis vol. 2 (audio CD), India: INRECO, 2007.