The Bangla Studies Initiative supports the instruction in Bangla language and literature at Berkeley. Spoken both in India and Bangladesh, Bangla is the fifth most commonly spoken language in the world, and is the language of some of the world’s greatest writers and creative artists, such as Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam and Satyajit Ray. Yet in the United States, Bangla is regularly taught at only one institution of higher education and sporadically at a handful of other universities:
Objectives
The Bangla Studies Fund allows ISAS to:
- Teach the Bangla language at the introductory, intermediate and advanced levels
- Help prepare researchers who wish to conduct field work in Bangladesh or India
- Train development practitioners, entrepreneurs and NGO activists to work in the field
- Fund scholarships
- For Berkeley students focusing on West Bengal or Bangladesh
- For Bangla or Bangladeshi graduate students pursuing graduate studies at UC Berkeley
- Create new and innovative materials to enhance the study of Bangla
- Increase Berkeley’s library holdings in Bangla literature
- Create lecture series to bring Bangla scholars, artists and performers to the Bay Area
The Bangla Studies Fund is the only one of its kind, specifically designated for the study of Bangla language and culture at an American university.
Your generous donation will initially be collected in to a current use fund which will then annually be transferred to an endowment.