Bangladesh 2024: Protest, Politics, Possibilities
The Minors in South Asian Studies and Global Middle East Studies; the Master of Arts in International Affairs; and the Departments of Asian and Asian American Studies, International Studies, and Political Science are excited to announce a virtual talk by Dr. Nusrat S. Chowdhury, "Bangladesh 2024: Protest, Politics, Possibilities" on Thursday, November 7th, 2024, at 5pm.
Dr. Nusrat S. Chowdhury is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at Amherst College in Massachusetts. Her first book, Paradoxes of the Popular: Crowd Politics in Bangladesh (Stanford University Press 2019), is an ethnography of the crowd. Her current book project explores sovereignty and sacrifice within populist authoritarianism.
About the talk: "Bangladesh 2024: Protest, Politics, Possibilities":
The July 2024 uprising in Bangladesh has been deemed unprecedented because of its success in deposing a leader whose grip on power seemed unshakable. Angry students steered the opposition who turned their dissatisfaction with a court decision about government job allocation into a one-point demand for the resignation of the prime minister. In a matter of weeks, and in the face of excessive state violence, droves of ordinary citizens came out on the streets and joined the protests. While the speed and manner in which the events unfolded is unprecedented, the student as political agent has a longer history in the political culture of the region. Based on conversations with student activists and leaders, this talk will situate the 2024 uprising within this larger context while identifying the shifts in the performative, aesthetic, and linguistic aspects of the July protests that aimed to draw a sharp line with the past.
