A/2, Jahurul Islam Avenue
Jahurul Islam City, Aftabnagar
Dhaka-1212, Bangladesh
Dissertation: "Daniel Defoe and Colonial Propaganda"
Supervisor: Professor Ian Ross
Dissertation: "The City in Melville's Fiction"
Supervisor: Professor Robin Blaser
Fakrul Alam retired as Professor of English at the University of Dhaka in June, 2017. He had also served the university as UGC Professor, Supernumerary Professor. Currently, he serves as the Adviser, Department of English, East West University. He has authored, edited or co-edited, and translated several books on a wide range of subjects. Among them are Bharati Mukherjee (Boston, Twayne Publishers, 1995); Jibanananda Das: Selected Poems (UPL, 1999); South Asian Writers in English (Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2006); Imperial Entanglements and Literature in English (Dhaka: writer’s ink: Dhaka, 2007), The Essential Tagore (Harvard UP, 2011; with Radha Chakravarty) and Reading Literature in English from Bangladesh: Postcolonial Perspectives (Dhaka: writer’s ink, 2021). He has also translated the novel Bishad Sindhu by Mir Mosharraf Hossein (Dhaka: Bangla Academy, 2016), the autobiographical writings of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Gitabitan: Selected Song-Lyrics of Rabindranath Tagore (Dhaka: Journeyman Books, 2023). He received the SAARC Literature Award in 2012, the Bangla Academy Puroshkar for Literature in 2013, and the SAARC Literature Award one more time in 2023.
Teaching Experience
Other Current Positions
Administrative/ ACADEMIC Positions Held
Current Research and Teaching Interests
“Rereading Melville’s Moby-Dick in Our Time.” Keynote paper presented at Rajshahi, Bangladesh in the International Conference on “Revisiting the Canon: Reading British and American Literatures from Contemporary Perspectives” organized by the Department of English, Rajshahi University & Association of Teachers of Literatures in English, Bangladesh (ATLEB) on 21 December, 2024
“On Translating the Gitanjali and Bridging Cultures through Translations”. Keynote paper presented at the International Conference on “Bridging Cultures: Advanced Discourses in Translation, Culture and Comparative Literature” on November 9, 2024 at City University, Bangladesh
“Dispersals, Diasporas and Literature: A Bangladeshi Perspective.” Keynote paper presented in an International held at Green University, Bangladesh on November 9, 2024.
“Transfer of Emotions: A Translator’s Testimony”. Presented at the plenary session on “Translation and Affect” at the national conference on “Critical-Affective Pedagogy” organized by Jahangirnagar University on 24 May, 2024.
“Bangabandhu, Rabindranath and the Dream of “Sonar Bangla”. Paper presented at the Shilpakala
Academy as part of its lecture series on “Sonar Bangla Swapna and Bastobata: Rabindranath Theke Bangabandhu: Rabindranath ”
“Polymathy and Rabindranath” paper “paper presented at the First International Conference on Humanities and the Social Sciences” held at the Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University Trishal, Mymensingh on 14 June, 2022.
“Tagore’s Translations and Their Global Impact”. 5th Lecture of the “Makers of Indian Literature” series organized by the Department of English, Vidyasagar University, delivered virtually on 18 February, 2022
“Diasporas, Dispersed Peoples. Identity Formation and Literature in English”; Keynote paper presented at the 1st International Conference on “Borders, Diaspora and Multilingualism in English Studies” organized by Department of English, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh on 8 January, 2022.
“Writing a Thesis: The Way Forward.” Presentation on 18 December, 2021 at the one-week Online International Workshop on Research Methodology in Arts and Literature: Theory and Application” organized by the Department of English Language and Literature, Islamic University of Science and Technology, Awantipara, J &K, India.
“Literature, Boundaries, Nationalism and National Identity Formation.” The 15th Anita Baruah Sarmah Memorial Lecture, December 10, 2021. Sponsored by the Anita Baruah Sarmah College of Education, Gauhati University.
“Shahbagh, Shapla Chottor and Bangladesh’s Meandering, Contending Mindscapes.”
Paper presented in the “Culture” panel of the CPD-Cornell University virtual conference on “Fifty Years of Bangladesh: Retrospect & Prospect” on 8 December, 2021.
“Reclaiming Frayed Connections Imaginatively—Rabindranath Tagore’s Voyages to China, Japan and Indonesia”. Paper presented in a virtual panel in the “Memory and the past in South Asia”, the 2nd online international conference organized by the South Asia Research Center” of Soka University, Japan on 26 November, 2021.
“Nation, Politics and Three Bangladeshi Novels in English”. Keynote paper presented in a virtual conference organized on the Bangladeshi English novel organized by the University of Salerno on June 25, 2021.
“The University of Dhaka and the Making and Shaping of Bangladeshi Art, Culture and Literature.” Keynote paper presented at the DU Centenary lectures organized by the Centre for Genocide Studies of the University of Dhaka on March 24, 2021.
“English Studies in Bangladesh”. Lecture 2 of Indian Association of Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (IACLALS) Lecture Series, presented live on Saturday, January 30, 2021.
Mrs. Noor Jehan Murshid & Professor Khan Sarwar Murshid Trust Fund Lecture 2020, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. 21 December, “Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the “4 Pillars” of the Bangladesh Constitution”.
“Translating Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s Writings” Webinar 9, Department of English, Jehangirnagar University, 15 December, 2020.
“Literature and the Environment”, Webinar 6, 12 December 2020, Notre Dame University, Bangladesh
“I’ve Caught Uncatchable Loveliness in Rhyme’s Binds: Translating Rabindranath Tagore’s Songs”, Virtual Lecture at Tagore Centre, UC Berkeley, October 13, 2020
“Partition and Bangladesh” Panelist at Partition Series webinar, IIT Kharagpur, 28 September, 2020
“Singing Birds, English Romanticism and Two Bengali Bards in Their Late Romantic Phase”. Keynote paper presented at Independent University of Bangladesh on 5 March, 2020.
“The 1947 Partition from a Thrice-Partitioned National Perspective.” The 12th Lecture of the “Partition Lecture Series” presented on 29 February, 2020 at the 3rd International Seminar on the Bengal Partition held at the Netaji Subhas Bose Open University Headquarter, Salt Lake, Kolkata.
“Locating the Global South Postcolonially”. Keynote paper presented on 15 February 16, 2020 at the International Conference on “Postcolonial Perspectives: Language, Literature and the Global South” organized by the Department of English, Daffodil University, Bangladesh
“Confronting Violence Relating to National Identity Formation—a Bangladeshi Perspective.” A paper presented as a “Resource Person” at an international conference on the theme of “An Eye for an Eye: Conflict in South East Asia organized by the English department, Synod College of Shillong, Meghalaya, India on 7 November, 2019.
“The Idea of a University in Our Time”. The 2019 Nahreen Khan Memorial Lecure”. Delivered at East West University on 25 July, 2019.
“Plenary Conversation” (with Professor Abhi Subhedi, Tribhuvan University, Nepal), at South Asian University, Nepal on 22 April, 2019.
“Reflections on Rabindranath’s Travels, Cultural Transfer and Translation”, a presentation on “Rabindranath Tagore and Travel” at a seminar organized by the Department of English, Visva-Bharati on 29 March, 2019.
“The Partitioning of Bengal, 1971 and National Identity Formation in Tanvir Mokammel’s Films”. Plenary Lecture delivered on 02 February, 2019 at 3-day International Conference on “Region/Nation/Trans-nation” organized by Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, K. K. Birla Goa campus, India.
“Karl Marx on India: A Postcolonial Perspective”. Plenary Lecture delivered at the 2-day international conference celebrating the bicentenary of Karl Marx’s Birth at the University of Liberal Arts, Bangladesh on December 1, 2018.
“Learning about Translation While Translating: A Personal Account”. A talk given at Ambekar University, New Delhi on 13 November, 2018.
“Rediscovering the Human Image by Crossing Borders: Amitav Ghosh’s Writerly Travels/Travails”. Paper presented at the 5th World Humanities Forum Conference in Busan Korea on October 31, 2018.
“Art as Liberation; Art for Liberation.” Panel presentation at conference on “From Survival to Sustainable Development: Overcoming Challenges for Achieving a Just World”, organized by Asian University for Women at Chittagong, Bangladesh on April 11, 2018.
“Doing Ecocriticism from Where We Are”. Keynote paper presented at the University of Kashmir’s English department conference on “Literature and the Environment” on 26 March, 2018.
“South Asian Literature Now”. Keynote presentation at Bangla Academy’s “South Asian Literature Now” conference on 22 February, 2016.
“Shakespeare’s Political Truth and Our World.” Plenary presentation at Khulna University and part of the conference on “The Shakespearean Legacy”, 4 February, 2018
“Cultural Transfer, Rabindranath Tagore’s Travels and Travel Writing.” Plenary presentation at Amrita University, Coimbatore and part of the international conference organized by Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham and Caesurae Collective on “Interrogating Cultural Translation: Literature and Fine Art in Translation.” 24 August, 2017.
“Ibsen our Contemporary and the Continuing Relevance of His Enemy of the People.” Keynote address presented at the International Conference on “Ibsen and the Freedom of Speech” on 10 March, 2017 at Khulna University.
“At Home in the World and the World as His Nest: Rabindranath’s Cosmopolitan Consciousness.” Plenary Paper presented at the Conference on “Rabindranath and Cosmopolitanism” held in Shantiniketan, Viswa-Bharati University on February 27, 2017.
“Translation and Transcending Borders.” Paper presented at the FOSWAL Conference on South Asian Literature Festival on February 24, 2017 held at the ICC conference theatre in Delhi, India.
“The New Media and Rethinking English Studies in Bangladesh: Keynote paper presented at East West University, Bangladesh on January 21, 2017 in national conference on “New Media and Identity Formation.”
“Making Shakespeare Our Contemporary in Our Classrooms.” Plenary Paper presented at conference on “Shakespeare Four Hundred Years Later” organized by Independent University, Bangladesh on 4 November, 2016.
“Sufism, Peace and Harmony, and Bangladesh Past and Present.” Paper presented at the South Asian Festival, Diggi Palace, Jaipur, on October 12 organized by Federation of SAARC Writers and Literature.
“Rabindranath Tagore at the Intersection of Nationalism and Modernity”. Paper presented at international conference on “Tagore and Nationalism” on 5 November, 2015 at Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Rahshtrapati Nivas, Shimla, India.
“The Machine in the Garden and Literary and Cultural Studies”. Keynote paper presented at the National Conference” on “The Machine in the Garden” on 19 September, 2015 at Daffodil University, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
” Are the Green Fields Gone? What Do They Here?” Herman Melville and Ecological Consciousness.” Paper presented on 7 August, 2015 at the International Interdisciplinary Conference on “Ecocriticism, Environmental Justice and Literature: at the Muzzafar Ahmed Chowdhury Bhabhan Auditorium, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Dhaka.
“English Language Writing in Bangladesh.” Paper presented at North South University, Bangladesh’s English department on 2nd August, 2015 as part of its “Discourses” series
“The University of Dhaka and Bangladesh Partitions: a History and Some Observations.” Keynote Address delivered at international conference on “A Thrice-Partitioned Nation: Revisiting Bangladesh” organized by English Discipline. Khulna University on March 29, 2015.
“Cultural Translation and the Translation of Cultures.” Keynote Address delivered at international Conference on “Translating Culture: Society, History, Politics” organized by the department of English and the department of Sociology of West Bengal State University at the Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture on 9 March 2015.
“Transnationalism and Recent South Asian Fiction.” Keynote address delivered at International Conference on “Writing India: Colonial, Postcolonial and Transnational Fiction” on 16 January, 2015 at Ravenshaw University, Odisha, India.
Panelists in session titled “Translations-Transnations” on 7 November and session titled “Bangla—One Language, Two Cultures” on 9 November in “Samanvay Indian Languages Festival” organized by Indian Habitat Center, New Delhi, on 6-9 November, 2014.
“Translation Viewed as the Territory of Unending Differences.” A paper read on April 2, 2014 at the seminar on “Translation Studies for Exploring Identities” organized by Arts and Humanities School of Khulna University.
“Rabindranath, Jibanananda and the Anxiety of Influence.” A paper read on February 15, 2013 in the “Beyond Gitanjali: Tagore, Poetry and Poetics Conference” organized by Department of English and Other Modern European Languages of Visva-Bharati, Shantiniketan on 14-16 February 2014.
“The University of Dhaka in Bangladesh’s Fortieth Year: A Narrative of Decline”. Paper read at the ASB Auditorium, on 16 March, 2013 in the two-day seminar organized by the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh on “Bangladesh at 40: Achievements and Challenges”.
“Confronting the Canon Contrapuntally: The Example of Edward Said”. Paper read at a plenary session of a conference on “Revisiting the Contours of English Studies, organized by EFL University, Hyderabad on 20 November, 2012.
“Rabindranath’s Literary Legacy”, a talk delivered at Osmania University Centre for International Programmes,” (OUCIP), on 19 November, 2012.
“The State of the Tertiary Humanities Curriculum at the University of Dhaka”. Paper presented at one-day workshop on “Evolution of Curriculum for Tertiary Level Education in Bangladesh” organized by the University Grants Commission of Bangladesh at Agargaon, Dhaka on June 3, 2012.
“Rabindranath Tagore and Eco-Consciousness”. Paper presented at the SAARC Literature Festival held in Lucknow, India on 17 March, 2012.
“Problems of Translating Rabindranath Tagore’s Verse”. Paper presented at the conference on “Tagore and Translation” organized by Visva-Bharti at Shantiniketan on 17 February, 2012.
Jaipur Literature festival 2012
22nd January: “Amaar Bangla”—panel discussion with Fakrul Alam, Anita Agnihotri and Radha Chakravorty in conversation with Malashri Lal.
23rd January: “Nothing to Declare: Straight Lines and History’—panel discussion with Fakrul Alam, Mohammed Hanif, Rabi Thapa, Siddharta Gigoo, moderated by Urvashi Butalia.
----. “India in Translation”—panel\discussion with Oscal Pujol; introduced by Urvashi Butalia.
“Luminous with Vision: Rabindranath, Thoreau and Life-Centered Education amidst Nature”. Paper presented at the “Shantiniketan-Hellerau: Universalist Education in the Pedagogic Province” conference at Humboldt University zu Berlin on 8 October, 2011.
“Beyond Fragmented Worldviews and Narrow Domestic Walls: Tagore’s Universalism”. Paper presented at “Other Cosmopolitanisms”, a conference organized at the University of Technology Sidney (UTS), by the Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Research Centre and Indian Ocean and South Asia Research Network of the university, on August 15, 2011
“Rabindranath Tagore in the Twenty-First Century”. Paper presented at the first international literary conference organized by the Bangla Academy, Dhaka, on 27th June, 2011.
“English, the Language of Power and the Power of Language”. Paper presented at the international conference on “” Thinking Other/wise with/in English Studies” organized by the Department of English, Jehangirnagar University on 13 and 14 May 2011.
“An Idealist on the Lectern: Rabindranath Tagore’s Lectures and Speeches in English”. Paper presented at the international conference on “The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore” in Cochin, India organized by Sahitya Akademi, Delhi, on February 24, 2011.
“One Hundred Years of Tagore Translations”. Paper presented at the international conference on “A Different Universalism: The Global Vision of Rabindranath Tagore and his Contemporaries”, organized
by the Neatji Research Bureau (NRB) in association with the Kolkata Museum of Modern Art (K-MOMA) in Kolkata on December 21, 2012.
“Tagore and National Identity Formation in Bangladesh”. Paper presented at a conference on “Tagore’s Contemporary Relevance” as part of the Tagore Festival organized by Nalanda International at Loyola Marymount University, LA on October 2, 2011.
“The University of Dhaka and Bangladeshi National Identity Formation”. Paper presented at the “Being Bengali” workshop held in Sydney on August 20, 2010 in a conference organized by the Writing and Society Research Group of the University of Western Sydney.
“The Gitanjali in Translation: A Miracle of Transformation”. Paper presented on February 24, 2010 at the International Conference on “Connecting Cultures: Translation and Texts” organized by the Department of English, University of Calcutta, India.
“Exile, Cosmopolitanism an the Diasporic Intellectual: the Example of Edward Said”. Paper presented on February 10, 2010 at the Interdisciplinary Conference in English on “Diasporic Space: Voices and Voyages” held in Jamshedpur Women’s College, Jharkand,India.
“Confronting Empire Now”. Paper presented at a plenary session on 11 December, 2009 at t a conference organized by the Department of English, East West University on, “Empire and English Studies: Pedagogy and Activism Now”, in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Three Lectures on August 7 and 8, 2009 at the Academic Staff College at the University of Burdawan, India, on “Literature and the Visual Arts”.
“The Commodification of English Studies in Bangladesh”. Paper read at the plenary session of the 2008 international MELUS conference 0n “Literature, Globalization and the Market Place” at Visva-Bharati on November 21, 2008.
“Some Qualities of Permanence: Tagore’s English Prose’: Paper Presented on 28 March 2008 at “Utsav-Celebrating Tagore in the Twentieth Century,” a conference organized by the Indo-Bangladesh Cultural
Initiative and held at India International Centre, Delhi, 27-30 March, 2008.
“Imperial Entanglements and Literature in English,” Keynote paper read at the seminar organized on the theme of “Imperialism and Society” by the United States-Sri Lanka Fulbright Commission at Trans Asia Hotel, Colombo on 4 January, 2008.
“On Translating in the Indo-Bangla Context”. Presentation made on 2 November 2007 at the India Bangladesh Festival of Books and Writers at Independent University, Dhaka, Bangladesh,
“Edward Said and Style”. Presentation at the Center for Contemporary Theory, Baroda, on January 12, 2007.
“Enmeshed in Differences: Amitav Ghosh’s Fictional Location”; keynote speech at one session of the University of Mumbai’s English Department’s Sesquicentennial Celebration on December 21, 2006.
“Tagore and the Idea of a University”. Paper presented at the ninth International Conference on Knowledge-Systems in a Climate of Creativity” organized by the Forum on Contemporary Theory, Baroda at Udaipur on Dec. 20, 2006.
“Sexuality and R. K. Narayan’s Fiction.” Paper presented at the R. K. Narayan Centenary Conference at Mysore, organized by Sahitya Akademi, India and ACLALS, India in September 2006
“South Asian Writing in English”. Paper presented at a conference on “Border Crossings: English Today”, organized by the Department of English, East West University, Dhaka, on April 16, 2006.
“R. K. Narayan at the Indian Moment.” Paper presented at the 200th Anniversary Conference of the Asiatic Society of Bombay at Mumbai on September 1, 2004.
“Travelling Theory and Crossing Borders: The Example of Edward Said.” Paper presented at the American Literature Study Circle seminar on “Crossing Borders: American, Asian and Postcolonial Literatures”, August 27-29, 20002, American Center, Calcutta.
“Translating Tagore’s Verse.” Paper presented at a conference on “Creation and Reflection: South Asian Creative and Academic Writing” organized at the British Council, Sri Lanka on 27-29 June 2002.
“Using Postcolonial Literature in ELT”. Paper presented at Language Institute of JALT international conference held at Kitakyushu Japan in November; 2001.
“Representing Asian Americans in Short Fiction: The Stories of Bharati Mukherjee and Jhumpa Lahiri”. Paper presented at the American Studies Conference organized at Nagarkot, Nepal by USIS and the Nepal Association of American Studies on September 22-23, 2001.
Honors and Professional Awards
Modern Language Association of America
Asiatic Society of Bangladesh
Bangladesh Association for American Studies
Professor Syed Manzoorul Islam, Department of English, University of Dhaka, Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh. Fax: 880-2-8615583 ; phone-8801711593977; smidhaka@gmail.com
Professor Kaiser Haq, Department of English, University of Dhaka , Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh. Fax: 880-2-8615583; phone-8801819241355;kaiserhaq@gmail.com
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