The Subir & Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies

The Subir & Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies Fostering Bangladesh Studies. Improving Quality of Life. Chowdhury. The pioneering force behind the Center is Subir Chowdhury. Mr.

The Subir & Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies, established in 2013 with a generous gift from the Subir and Malini Chowdhury Foundation, champions the study of Bangladesh’s cultures, peoples and history. The first of its kind in the US, the Center’s mission is to create an innovative model combining research, scholarships, the promotion of art and culture, and the building of ties betw

een institutions in Bangladesh and the University of California. The Center was officially launced on Monday, March 30, 2015 by UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, Founder & Chairman of BRAC Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, and Mr. Chowdhury, originally from Chittagong and trained as an engineer, is a renowned business consultant, author of many books, and is one of the world’s leading management gurus particularly known for his emphasis on quality. In addition to promoting and integrating interdisciplinary scholarship, the Chowdhury Center will sponsor lectures and conferences and provide the following three scholarships:

The Subir Chowdhury Fellowship on Quality of Life in Bangladesh is for graduate students and will be matched by the University’s Graduate Fellowship Matching Program. The Malini Chowdhury Fellowship on Bangladesh Studies is for graduate students in any field concentrating on Bangladesh studies and will also be matched by the University’s Graduate Fellowship Matching Program. The Subir Chowdhury Undergraduate Scholarship will be awarded to students concentrating in South and Southeast Asian Studies at Berkeley and will be matched by the Ford Challenge, a fund provided by a Berkeley donor to match undergraduate scholarship gifts.

The Chowdhury Center, together with the Institute for South Asia Studies and the Center on Contemporary India, hosted ou...
09/04/2026

The Chowdhury Center, together with the Institute for South Asia Studies and the Center on Contemporary India, hosted our Annual Reception yesterday.

Despite the light drizzle, it was a warm and lively afternoon, with freshly made dosas, wine, and a wonderful performance by Dil Se. More than 100 guests joined us, bringing together students, faculty, colleagues, and friends from across the Berkeley community.

Thank you to everyone who joined us and helped make the gathering such a memorable start to the academic year.

Here are a few photographs from the afternoon

Our Fall 2026 newsletter is out, and we’re delighted to share what’s ahead at the Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studie...
08/30/2026

Our Fall 2026 newsletter is out, and we’re delighted to share what’s ahead at the Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies. This semester brings together a lively mix of book talks, film screenings, exhibitions, and conversations, featuring scholars, writers, artists, and filmmakers working on Bangladesh and the wider South Asian region. Please take a look, mark your calendars, and join us at the Center this fall.

Join us at the Chowdhury Center this fall for a lively season of book talks, conversations, screenings, and exhibitions exploring Bangladesh’s histories, cultural life, borders, and politics, while also connecting these themes to the wider South Asian region.

On Zoom next week: Tue, Apr 28 at 9 am:The 5th Maya Mitra Das Annual Lecture on Tagore, by Professor Lala Rukh Selim, a ...
04/23/2026

On Zoom next week: Tue, Apr 28 at 9 am:
The 5th Maya Mitra Das Annual Lecture on Tagore, by Professor Lala Rukh Selim, a sculptor and Professor at the Department of Sculpture, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Sukanya Banerjee (Associate Professor of English, UC Berkeley), Tausif Noor, Curatorial Associate at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and a PhD candidate in History of Art, and Waziuddin Chowdhury (Facilities Director of the South SF Unified School District, and an Architect) will serve as discussants.

Register on Zoom at https://berkeley.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KVS1LjtyRbaibnFj7LOp5w #/registration

More about the event at
https://events.berkeley.edu/csas/event/313372-lala-rukh-selim-rabindranath-tagore-art-and-banglades

Today, April 16 @ 5 pm: A talk by Nadeem Zaman, author of the novels "The Inheritors" (Hachette India, 2023) and "In the...
04/16/2026

Today, April 16 @ 5 pm:
A talk by Nadeem Zaman, author of the novels "The Inheritors" (Hachette India, 2023) and "In the Time of the Others" (Picador India, 2018), and the short story collection "Up in the Main House & Other Stories" (Unnamed Press, 2019). Zaman will discuss the craft and challenges of fictionalizing historical events and characters, with a particular focus on his novel about Bangladesh’s 1971 War of Liberation. Drawing on his doctoral research into the roots of the conflict, he will reflect on the conceptual and stylistic choices that led him to write about the events of that year as fiction rather than history.

Thu, Apr 16 at 5 pm
A talk by Nadeem Zaman, author of the novel In the Time of the Others (Picador India, 2018) and the short story collection Up in the Main House & Other Stories (Unnamed Press, 2019). His fiction has appeared in literary journals in the United States, Hong Kong, India, and Bangladesh.
More at https://events.berkeley.edu/csas/event/313390-nadeem-zaman-fiction-history-story-writing-the-bangla

Address

10 Stephens Hall
Berkeley, CA
94720

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+15106423608

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