The Institute for South Asia Studies and the Tagore Program on Literature, Culture and Philosophy at UC Berkeley and are privileged to have Bashabi Fraser, the Director of the Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies at Edinburgh Napier University, deliver our third Maya Mitra Das Annual Lecture on Tagore at UC Berkeley.
Event moderated by Rahul Parson. Assistant Professor of Hindi Literature in the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies at University of California, Berkeley
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SPEAKER BIO
Bashabi Fraser CBE, HonFASL is an award winning poet, children’s writer, editor and academic. She is the recipient of a CBE (2021 The Queen’s New Year Honours) for Education (her academic work), culture (poetry) and cultural integration (her bridge building projects linking Scotland and India) and was made Honorary Fellow of the Association of Scottish Studies in 2022. She has been declared Outstanding Woman of Scotland by Saltire Society in 2015.
Bashabi is Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing, Edinburgh Napier University and Founder Director of Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies (ScoTs). She is also an Honorary Fellow, Centre for South Asian Studies, University of Edinburgh, Honorary Fellow of the Association of Scottish Literary Studies (ASLS), Scotland and a Royal Literary Fund Fellow. She is the Chief Editor of the academic and creative peer-reviewed international e-journal, Gitanjali and Beyond and on the Editorial Board of several international peer-reviewed journals and is on the Editorial Board of Writers Mosaic, a Royal Literary Fund division..
Her work traverses continents in transnational literary projects. She has authored and edited 25 books, published several articles articles and chapters in academic and creative books/journals and has been widely anthologized as a poet. Her recent publications include Habitat (2023), Lakshmi’s Footprints and Paisely Patterns: Perspectives on Scoto-Indian Literary and Cultural Interrelations (2023), The Patient Dignity (2021) and Rabindranath Tagore (2019).
Her other recent awards include Swami Vivekananda University, India’s Vivek Jyoti Sanman, 2023, the UK Bengali Convention (UKBC) Lifetime Achievement Award, 2022, the Dr Maheswar Neog IPPL Award for Poetry, 2022; Kavi Salam from Poetry Paradigm and Voice of the Republic in India in 2019; the Word Masala Foundation Award for Excellence in Poetry in 2017, Special Felicitation as a Poet on International Women’s Day by Public Relations Society of India, March 2017, Rabindra Bharati Society Honour, 2014, Women Empowered: Arts and Culture Award in 2010 and the AIO Prize for Literary Services in Scotland in 2009.
Her other grants and funding awards include the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, International Senior Research Fellow ( 2016-17), UK-India Educational Research Initiatives (UKIERI) grant, funded jointly by the British Council and the University Grants Commission (UGC), India (2015-2017), Royal Literary Fund Fellow (2018-2020, 2012-2015), Carnegie Research Grant (2008), Edinburgh Napier University Research Grant (2008), British Council Consultancy (2008-2009), Scottish Arts Council Publication Grant (2008), Scottish Arts Council Writer’s Grant with Edinburgh Puppet Lab (2003-4), EMMA Best Book Award, Runner up for Rainbow World (2003-4), Moray Foundation Grant, University of Edinburgh (2001 and 2000), Scottish Arts Council Literature Grant, for anthology (2000), British Academy Research Grant (1999-2000), University Grants Commission of India Teacher Fellowship, , Sept 1984-Feb 1988.
Bashabi has been an Adjudicator for several national and international creative writing competitions. Recently, she has been a Judge for the Non-Fiction Book Prize and the Scottish National Book of the Year Award for Saltire Society, Scotland (2022) and the Kavya Prize, sponsored by Glasgow University (2022).
Bashabi is Honorary Vice President of the Association of Scottish Literary Studies (ASLS), an executive committee member of Scottish PEN, and Writers at Risk and Writers for Peace Committees (Scotland), a Trustee of Patrick Geddes Trust and the Kolkata Scottish Heritage Trust, Patron of the Federation of Writers (Scotland). She is the founder and President of the Advisory Board of the Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library (IPPL) in Kolkata; she is on the Advisory Board of the V&A Museum in Dundee and the Indian Association of Scottish Studies, led by Bankura University. Bashabi is on the Editorial Board of several international peer-reviewed journals. She lives in Edinburgh with her husband, Neil Fraser.
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Launched in Fall 2019, and housed in the Institute for South Asia Studies, the Tagore Program on Literature, Culture and Philosophy at UC Berkeley, is the first of its kind in the US. Designed to showcase the life and legacy of Rabindranath Tagore, the program sponsors talks and workshops on Tagore, as well as semester-long visiting professorships in Tagore Studies at UC Berkeley. Read more about the program HERE.
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PARKING INFORMATION
Please note that parking is not always easily available in Berkeley. Take public transportation if possible or arrive early to secure your spot.
Event is FREE and OPEN to the public.
