Zain R. Mian is a PhD Candidate in the Program for Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania. He is interested in contemporary debates on World Literature, the sociology of literary institutions and forms, as well as historiographical theory and narratology more broadly. Zain’s Masters research project, “The Reluctant Comparatists: Towards A Reconceptualization of Pakistani Literature,” was awarded the Postgraduate Essay Prize by the Postcolonial Studies Association. Currently, he is laying the foundation for a dissertation on the theoretical status of the journal as a literary form, contextualized within the Urdu and Anglophone traditions.