WHAT ARE FELLOWS ARE SAYING

The Chowdhury Center provides several scholarships to Berkeley students for conducting research to improve the lives of those in Bangladesh. and  are our newest recipients. Read below to find out how the fellowships have helped support them in their academic pursuits. 
 
Ariana Pemberton
PhD Candidate, History of Art
The Malini Chowdhury Fellow on Bangladesh Studies 

The Malini Chowdhury Fellowship has inspired me to parse out the intersecting histories of premodern Bangladesh and Habshi (Abysinnian) architectural patronage. With the support of the Fellowship, I am able to explore the ways in which Bangladesh served as a site that propelled and held space for the articulation of a cosmopolitan Black South Asian identity and kingship in the fifteenth century. I feel so honored and grateful to have received the Malini Chowdhury Fellowship and look forward to using my award's funding to visit extant architectural sites in Bangladesh that were patronized by this growing community of elite (yet enslaved and/or formerly enslaved) Habshis once travel restrictions are lifted.

Nazmul Ahasan
MA Candidate, Journalism
Subir Chowdhury Fellow on Quality of Life in Bangladesh

Having the support of the Chowdhury Center through the Subir Chowdhury Fellowship on Quality of Life in Bangladesh has enabled me to carry out scholarly and journalistic works on Bangladesh throughout the last term. I co-authored a chapter in a book titled Masks of Authoritarianism: Hegemony, Power and Public Life in Bangladesh, which was published late last year by Palgrave MacMillan and contained outputs from leading scholars of Bangladesh studies. More recently, I have written on the unprecedented economic sanctions issued by the United States on Bangladesh’s elite police unit, Rapid Action Battalion, for the Foreign Policy magazine. I have also contributed a chapter, co-authored with Mubashar Hasan of Western Sydney University, to the upcoming book University Autonomy Decline: Causes, Responses, and Implications for Academic Freedom.” The fellowship allowed me to undertake these endeavors while enrolled in an intense professional graduate program. I am extremely thankful for the generous support that I received from the Chowdhury Center."