Md. Mahmudul Hasan

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary (online), the first known use of the term ‘feminism’–

On Saturday, February 15, 2003, I was part of a 15-coach convoy from Portsmouth to London, UK.

As an academic, I often share with students my writings that are related to the courses I teach. That was not the case with our educators when I was a student in the Department of English at Dhaka University. The reason was not because there were no writers among our teachers.

Writer and academic Elora Shehabuddin has lived in a number of countries and had a fair share of exposure to multicultural environments. Her lived experience must have proved helpful in bringing in a comprehensive perspective to the discussion in Sisters in the Mirror: A History of Muslim Women and the Global Politics of Feminism (University of California Press 2021; University Press Limited 2022).  

Alice Beck Kehoe (1934-) is a family friend, and I have her permission to use her first name in short for this essay. After reading Alice’s autobiography Girl Archaeologist: Sisterhood in a Sexist Profession (2022), Raudah, my wife, recommended the book to me with confidence that I would love it.

Writers and intellectuals are obligated to stir moral indignation at gross injustices and the plight of the masses.

Writer, statesman and educationalist Humayun Kabir (1906-69) was born in Komarpur near Faridpur town. The childhood of this cosmopolitan intellectual was spent in a rural culture.

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s (1880-1932) ancestors came from Tabriz in Iran to settle down in this region. During her lifetime, Bangladesh as an independent country did not exist. We call her a Bangladeshi writer because she was born in Pairaband, Rangpur, in what is now Bangladesh. However, the site of her activism was Calcutta.