S M Mahfuzur Rahman, IUB Valedictorian of 2018 and presently the adjunct faculty at the Department of English and Modern Languages at IUB has won the ‘Biyotkesh Tripathy Best Paper Award’ at the 3rd International Conference organized by the Postgraduate Department of English, Berhampur University, Odisha, India.
The Conference titled, “Environment and Culture in the Anthropocene” was held recently, accompanied by a poetry reading ceremony in honour of Upendra Bhanja (ca. 1670–1740), considered as the “Kabi-Samrata” – “The Emperor of Poets” of Odia Literature and jointly sponsored by the World Bank Higher Education Programme for Excellence and Equity (OHEPEE) and The Guild of Indian English Writers, Editors and Critics (GIEWEC).
In this cosmopolitan milieu of scholars, S M Mahfuzur Rahman delivered his ‘Special Presentation’. The other presenters of the session were Bandan Kumar Mishra, associate professor of Architecture, GITAM, Visakhapatnam, India, and Chetna Tiwari, assistant professor, University School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprasth University, Dwarka, Delhi.
S M Mahfuzur Rahman’s paper titled “Subversion in Subterfuge: Chaos in the Cuckoo’s Nest”, which demonstrates the Quantum Mechanical (Physics) basis for subaltern self-organization (Libidinal Economy) through folk arts such as the Nakshi Kantha (the embroidered quilts of Bengal), won the ‘Best Paper Award’.
The many competitors for the prestigious award comprised Azzedine Bouhassoun, associate professor, University Center Belhadj Bouchaib, Algeria; Anisha Samantara, PhD scholar, University of Bradford, UK; Bam Dev Adhikari, associate professor, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal, Isabel HyunSun Hwang, Independent scholar, New York, USA; Md Naimur Rahman, Begum Rokeya University, Rangpur; Dr Sunil Govinnage, author and poet, Curtin University, Australia; Arpita Roy, MPhil scholar, Jadavpur University, West Bengal, and many other Indian and foreign scholars.