Aligarh: Noted scholar, Sahitya Akademi award winner, and a senior faculty member in the Department of Mass Communication, Aligarh Muslim University, Prof Shafey Kidwai has been appointed Director, Sir Syed Academy, for three years or till further orders, with immediate effect, according to a press note from the University.
His well-researched works on Sir Syed, including his bestseller book published by Routledge in 2020, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: Reason, Religion and Nation, have earned him the stature of a distinguished Sir Syed scholar. His book candidly highlights Sir Syed’s contribution to the collective life of India, who is more than a mere university founder.
A well-known communication expert, bilingual critic, translator, and columnist, Prof Kidwai has received the highest literary prize in the country, the Sahitya Akademi Award for his enterprising work on Sir Syed in Urdu, Sawanah-e-Sir Syed, in the year 2019, Madhya Pradesh Government’s prestigious award for literature, Iqbal Samman in 2017 and Uttar Pradesh Urdu Academy’s highest award for literary achievement, Amir Khusro Award in 2018.
His other book, Urdu Literature and Journalism: Critical Perspective (Cambridge University Press, India, 2014), enumerates how Urdu journalism and literature resisted the alien rule and urged the countrymen to wage relentless struggle against the subjugation.
He has published 12 books in English and Urdu that include, Sawanah-e-Sir Syed, Aligarh Institute Gazette: Ek Tajziyati Mutala, Fiction Mutale’at, Miraji, Khabar Nigari, Michael Madhusudan Dutt and R.K. Narayan. He also compiled and translated frequently used terms of mass communication in Urdu and prepared a style book for the ETV Urdu, Hyderabad.
His book reviews and columns regularly appear in The Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, The Hindu, The Outlook, The Frontline, The Book Review, and Siasat.com. His fortnightly column, Going Native for the Friday Review of The Hindu, received wide appreciation from scholars in India and abroad.
He served Sahitya Akademi twice as a member of its General Council and was a member of the Urdu Advisory Board, of Sahitya Akademi for three terms. He was also the convener of the Bhasha Committee (Urdu) for the Saraswati Samman and Jnanpith Award. He was also a General Council Member of the National Council for the Promotion of Urdu. He is the editorial board member of the reputed journal, Rozan-e-Rekhta and others, and contributes regularly to the literary journals of Urdu and English.
He has taught communication theories, cultural studies, broadcast journalism, and film studies since 1985. He was appointed Professor in 2005 and served as the Department of Mass Communication’s chairman four times.
