Aqsa Ijaz

Aqsa Ijaz works on classical Persian poetry and studies its reception in mediaeval and early modern North India. Born and raised in Lahore, Pakistan – she is trained in classical music and specialises in the vocal forms of thumri and ghazal. As a scholar of Persian, Urdu, and Punjabi, her doctoral research focuses on the reception of the 12th century Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi and examines the formative role of Nizami’s poetry in shaping the language of emotion in premodern North India. Besides her academic work, Aqsa is an essayist and a translator and writes for various international publications such as The World Literature Today, The Herald, and the Marginalia Review of Books. She is committed to sharing academic research with audiences across the globe and in this regard serves on the editorial board of The Marginalia Review of Books in Los Angeles. Currently, she teaches Urdu and Persian at the Department of Language Studies, and co-manages the The Global Past Research Initiative also at the University of Toronto Mississauga.