AFestschrift or commemorative volume titled Politics and Culture: Essays in honour of Serajul Islam Choudhury has just been released.

The volume features essays, reflections on Serajul Islam Choudhury's contributions to English studies in the country.

A legendary teacher at Dhaka University, Serajul Islam Choudhury has been a fountainhead of inspiration to generations of students at English Department.

A trenchant critic of culture and politics, Serajul Islam analysed the trends in society with disenchantment.

The theme of the present volume " Culture and Politics" suggests the diversity of Prof. Choudhury's interest. The editors of the volume, Fakrul Alam and Firdous Azim, write, "The Academic Committee of the Department of English approved our proposal for bringing out a book of essays compiled in honour of SIC's unique contributions to English studies in Bangladesh and selected us as the editors of the volume. Accordingly, we invited contributions from SIC's colleagues, students, and associates on the theme of "Culture and Politics," since we felt that this was a rubric broad enough to bind the diversity of his interests. The aim, as we saw it, was to bring out a collection that would be tribute to a great teacher who had inspired many us. We thus sought contributors from not only among his students but also many others who have been influenced by him in his role of public intellectual."

Both the editors of the volume were themselves student of Prof. Choudhury and therefore had had the opportunity to follow closely their teacher's teaching method, "Literature teaching worldwide has to grapple with issues of position -- of where literature belongs in the lives of people. When we, the editors of this volume, were students in the Department of English in the early 70's, literature teaching had perhaps been

Fakml Alam Finlons Azim

Politics and Culture: Essays in Honour of Serajul Islam Choudhury

Edited by Fakrul Islam and Firdous Azim

ISBN: 984-32-0101-4

marked by the "belles letters" approach. However, even within that system Serajul Islam Chowdhury held us spell-bound with the way that he blended in the poems of Tennyson with England's colonial ventures, or the ways in which he read D H Lawrence's novels to look at issues of economic exploitation. Literature departments all over the world and including our own have changed considerably in the last three decades, but that whiff of the broader world in which literature has its place has hopefully been reflected in the expansion of the courses offered in Serajul Islam Choudhury's department."

The volume is rich in content and varied in scope with contributions from academics, researchers, journalists and essayists. Most of Prof Choudhury's illustrious students have written for this unique volume from Syed Manzoorul Islam, Kaiser Haq, to Shawkat Hussain and Nuzhat Amin.

As the editors of the memorial volume say, "We have aimed at inclusivity, and have used this volume as a space where all of us can express, in our different ways, our gratitude and homage to Serajul Islam Choudhury," this meaty anthology is a also a gratitude of the nation to this exemplary educationist.