Spring 2020

Dear Friends,

Welcome back to Berkeley! Hope you all had a wonderful break. 

The Chowdhury Center mourns the passing of Sir Fazle Hasan Abed in December. We were privileged to have him inaugurate the Center on March 30, 2015. An icon of international development and a pivotal figure in Bangladesh, Sir Abed was a social worker who founded BRAC, the world's largest NGO, in 1972. Today BRAC operates in more than 69 thousand villages of Bangladesh and has helped about 110 million people who live below the poverty line. For his contributions to social improvement, he was honored with numerous national and international awards. Our heartfelt condolences to all of Sir Abed's near and dear ones. A video-recording of Sir Abed's inaugural Chowdhury Center lecture, A Quiet Revolution, may be viewed here. 

Events
Event highlights this semester include a three- part event on the Rohingya crisis (film screening, one day conference, and briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington DC), launch of the Tagore Program on Literature, Culture, and Philosophy, a presentation by BRAC USA, a collaboration with the University of Victoria, and new book-related events with authors Ali Riaz, Mubashar Hasan, and Sanchita B. Saxena.

A quick round up of all our events lined up for this semester are:

LECTURES AND PANELS

1. Monday, February 10, 2020
   Rohingya—Beyond the Crisis Narrative: Statelessness and its implications for Myanmar and Bangladesh
   10 a.m.-12 p.m. | The Capitol Complex, 2359 Rayburn House Office Building
    
2. Thursday, February 27, 2020
   Sanchita B. Saxena | Who Makes Our Clothes? The Invisibility of Labor in the Global Garment Industry (under Cloth that Stretches: Weaving Community Across Time and Space)
   6-7:30 | Hearst Museum of Anthropology
    
3. Monday, March 23, 2020 (under planning)
   Muhammed Musa | BRAC's solutions to eradicating poverty in the world
   12-1:30 p.m. | 10 Stephens Hall

BOOK TALKS

       

1. Mon, Apr 6, 2020
   New Directions in Bangladesh Studies: Recent Scholarship in Political Studies
   5-7 p.m. | 10 Stephens Hall
   • Ali Riaz: Voting in a Hybrid Regime: Explaining the 2018 Bangladeshi Election
   • Mubashar Hasan: Islam and Politics in Bangladesh: The Followers of Ummah
      
2. Friday, April 24, 2020
   7 Years after the Rana Plaza Disaster: Lessons Learnt and Innovative Solutions Beyond Third-Party Monitoring
   5:30-7:30 p.m. | 10 Stephens Hall

CONFERENCES

1. Friday, February 7, 2020
   Beyond the Crisis Narrative: Rohingya Statelessness and its implications for Bangladesh8:30 a.m.-7 p.m. | 10 Stephens Hall
    
2. Friday, March 27 - Sunday, March 29, 2020
   Gendered Threads of Globalization (GToG): Textile Crossings in Asia Pacific
   9 a.m.-5 p.m. | University of Victoria

FILM SCREENINGS AND EXHIBITIONS

1. Thursday, February 6, 2020
   I Am Rohingya: A Genocide in Four Acts (A screening with Director present)
   5-7 p.m. | Sibley Auditorium, Bechtel Engineering Center
    
2. Thursday, February 13 - Sunday, June 21, 2020
   Cloth that Stretches: Weaving Community Across Time and Space
   Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology

SPECIAL EVENT

1. Saturday, February 22, 2020
   Tagore in our Times: Celebrating the Tagore Program on Literature, Culture and Philosophy
   3-6:30 p.m. | Sibley Auditorium, Bechtel Engineering Center

All our events are video recorded and made available on our website. Please scroll to the bottom of the page to see a list of newly added videos.

Working Groups
The Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies' Working Group on Bangladesh Studies, an interdisciplinary working group for graduate (MA and PhD) students whose research focuses on any aspect of Bangladesh or Bangladesh studies continues to remain active. The goal of this group is to connect students from across campus who are focused on Bangladesh as a part of their research program, as well as to serve as a forum to exchange ideas about fieldwork, conference opportunities, publishing, jobs, etc. For more information, or if you would like to join this group, please contact Patrick DeSutter at pjdesutter@berkeley.edu.

Since August 2017, Burmese security forces have been carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State forcing over half a million of them to flee to neighboring Bangladesh to escape killings, arson, and other atrocities. This mass migration has resulted in one of the worst humanitarian crises of our time. The Rohingya Working Group meets regularly to develop ideas and collaborations to further our collective work related to the Rohingya crisis. To join this group please sign up HERE.

South Asia Research Note
We have a new South Asia Research Note (SARN) on "Labor, Global Supply Chains, and the Garment Industry in South Asia: Bangladesh after Rana Plaza." Edited by Chowdhury Center Director, Dr. Sanchita B. Saxena, this book argues that larger flaws in the global supply chain must first be addressed to change the way business is conducted to prevent factory owners from taking deadly risks to meet clients’ demands in the garment industry in Bangladesh. Read our SARN on the book by clicking the link above or the box in the sidebar on the right.

Publications
Viewpoint & Media
Newly added articles include:

• an AP article titled UN condemns Myanmar over human rights abuses against Rohingya 
   
• Samira Siddique's (2017 Chowdhury Center Fellow) interview for Medium of Shahidul Alam titled In Conversation with Shahidul Alam

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Past Events
Newly added videos since our last Aajkal:
 

Shahidul Alam	Bangladesh Studies
Sanchita B. Saxena	Ali Asgar (Tara)
Rebecca Whittington	Amitav Ghosh