Graduate Student Directory

Summary of Expertise

Md Mizanur Rahman is a Ph.D. candidate in politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). Prior to UCSC, he earned an MS in Political Science from Illinois State University, USA, an MA in International Relations from South Asian University, New Delhi, and a BA from the University of Chittagong, Bangladesh. 

Rahman’s scholarship sits at the intersection of political theory, intellectual history, and Islamic studies, with a particular focus on the relationship between Islam and liberalism in late colonial and postcolonial South Asia. He is especially interested in recovering historical and political thinking that falls outside of what is often thought to constitute political theory. Rahman’s dissertation project traces the political ideas and activism of three Islamic scholars of twentieth-century Bengal to theorize their thinking around the individual, community, and state. His articles and reviews appeared in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Critical Research on Religion, and Journal of Asian and African Studies, among others.

Research Interests

My research interests are broadly in Islamic political thought, Islam and liberalism, Islam in the 20th century Bengal, Intellectual History, comparative political theory, Postcolonial theory, and South Asian Islam.  

Honors, Awards and Grants

Graduate Fellowship 2022 American Institute of Bangladesh Studies 

Regents' Fellowship Spring and Summer 2020, UCSC  

Outstanding Graduate Student Award 2019, Department of Politics and Government, Illinois State University

Graduate Student Travel Grant, Department of Politics and Government, Illinois State University (Spring 2019) to present a paper at the 2019 BDI- Yale Conference, Yale South Asia Council, CT, USA.

Bangladesh- Sweden Trust Fund Grant 2018, Economic Relations Division, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh

Lela Winegarner Fellowship 2017 for academic excellence and clear career goals, Graduate School, Illinois State University

SAARC- Indian Government Silver Jubilee Scholarship 2012, South Asian University, New Delhi, India 

Chancellor Gold Medalist, 2011 University of Chittagong, Bangladesh 

Selected Publications

“Reexamining the Nexus between Madrassa Education and Politics in Bangladesh” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 43: 4, 613-631, 2020

“The Making of Islamist Public Sphere in Bangladesh” Asian Journal of Comparative Politics, 4:4,330-351, 2019  

“Triangular Confluence: Islam and Modernity in Bangladesh” Journal of Asian and African Studies 53:6, 866-879, 2017

Review of Islam and Politics in Bangladesh; the Followers of Ummah by Mubashar Hasan, Singapore: Palgrave Mcmillan, 2020, Critical Research on Religion, 9: 2, 129-32, 2021   

Review of 1971: Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh by Srinath Raghavan, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013, Southeast Review of Asian Studies, 37:1, 100- 103, 2016 

Review of Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks by Jenny White, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2013. African and Asian Studies, 14:3, 240- 242, 2015

Review of Limites of Islamism: Jamaat-e-Islami in Contemporary India and Bangladesh by Maidul Islam, New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, India Quarterly, 72:2, 1-3, 2016   

Selected Presentations

“Bhashani on Politics, State, and the Ethics of Everyday Life” Association for Asian Studies Conference, 2024

“Ethical Harmony: Fitrat as a Critique of Liberalism” Association for Political Theory Conference, 2023

“Veiling in Rural Bangladesh: Women’s Rights Consciousness, Agency, and Subjectivity Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, 2021

“Sovereignty of Ummah: Ghannouchi’s Thought on Islamist Sovereignty” 27th Graduate Student Conference, Illinois State University, 2019

“Rethinking Secularism in Bangladesh” BDI- Yale Conference, South Asian Studies Council, Yale University, 2019

“Politics of Islamic Social Institutions in Bangladesh” Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, 2018

“Reexamining the Madrassa Education- Politics Nexus in Bangladesh” Southern Political Science Association Conference 2018