Congratulations to Professor Dr. Mirza Taslima Sultana for receiving a Fulbright Visiting Scholar Award at the University of California, Berkeley!

Professor Dr. Mirza Taslima Sultana from Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh, has been awarded the Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program 2023-24. This US State Department award is for a nine-month visiting scholar position in UC Berkeley’s Department of Gender and Women Studies. Dr. Taslima will be conducting research on “Gender-based Trolling and the Public: Impact and Activism in Bangladesh and the United States.” Professor Taslima has been working on this issue for the last two years. Men, women, non-binary, or LGBTQ people are experiencing trolling; however, almost everywhere, the language of troll is very gendered. Furthermore, the extent of trolling and the resulting marginalization are not the same everywhere. Also, differences exist in addressing the problem legally. In this study, she plans to compare how trolling is shaping the public sphere in Bangladesh, where the idea of democracy is relatively new, and the USA, where democracy has been practiced for a long time. Dr. Taslima will explore how activists are addressing the issue and supporting trolling victims in these two countries. She has already done her field research for the study in Bangladesh; she will now undertake her research in the USA.