SWEDISH SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES NETWORK

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Meeting with teachers and students at the Social Science and Arts Faculties, Chittagong University,
Sunday 12 December 2005

The University of Chittagong was founded in 1966 and now has six faculties: Arts, Science, Social Science, Commerce, Law, and Medicine. There are 15 000 students taught by 600 teachers.

A few days before our arrival a bom threat was announced against the Faculty of Arts. That is why we unfortunately did not visit the Chittagong University campus during our visit. Instead our host, Professor Imam Ali (photo to the right, along with Staffan Lindberg), Dept. of Sociology, had arranged for a meeting to be held in the Kernel National School & College in the central part of Chittagong city.
In the meeting there were about ten teachers representing various departments from the two faculties of Social Sciences and Arts, and also 20 students of Sociology. The Dept. of Sociology at Chittagong University has about 600 students and 18 teachers.

We first informed about SASNET and the various forms of opportunities to increase cooperation and exchange. The presentation evoked a lot of interest and also an interesting discussion about ongoing research at the two faculties.

Research interests discussed:
in Sociology:

• Inequality and social stratification between religious and ethnic groups
• Social class in Muslim society
• Urban – rural relationships
• Social Mobility
• Family system in Bangladesh society
• Neo-Marxist theory
• Development of the Bangladeshi intelligentsia in contemporary society
• Corruption in Bangladesh society today
• Political unrest in Bangladesh and its causes

in History:

The development of the Bengali Muslim intelligentsia 1905–1947.

Teachers in Bengali literature expressed a wish to develop a comparative study of Bengali and Swedish folk literature.
A professor of Political Science expressed a wish to make a comparative study of women in politics in Sweden and Bangladesh.
A professor of Law wanted to have Swedish cooperation in researching and teaching about the relation between law and society. The reason is, he thinks, that in Bangladesh there is wide gulf between abstract laws on the one hand and actual legal and political relations in society on the other.

Teachers we interacted with:
• A F Imam Ali, Prof. of Scoiology
• Emran Hossain, Prof. and Chairman, Dept. of History, former Dean of Arts
• S M Monirul Hassan, Assistant Prof., Dept. of Sociology
• Mahbubul Haque, Associate Prof., Dept. of Bengali
• Bhuiyan Iqbal, Dept. of Bengali
• N M Sajjadul Hoque, Dept. of Anthropology
• Abul Quassem Chowdhury, Prof. of Sociology
• Qamar Banu, Dept. of Zoology
• Md. Mamunur Rashid, Dept. of Law
• Md. Liaquat Ali, Dept. of Scoiology

Students from the Department of Sociology:
• Md. Mahbubur Rahman
• Fahmida Sultana
• Nurul Hossein
• Hasina Ahmed
• Allauddin
• Shamima Yasmin
• Farzana Sultana
• Farjana Akhter
• Harunur Rashid
• Shomsul Asafin
• Shabauddin