Md Shamim Hasan, (PhD Researcher)

Md Shamim Hasan is a PhD researcher in the Music, Drama, Film and Screen, and Heritage/Museum Studies Research Unit at Ulster University, UK, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Dramatics at the University of Chittagong, Bangladesh. He completed his Honours and Master’s degrees in Theatre from the University of Dhaka, and his second Master’s degree in Drama from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, India. Before undertaking his doctoral studies, he taught Contemporary Schools of Acting, Off-Proscenium Theatre, Traditional Theatre of Bangladesh, Stanislavski’s System, and Theatre of Grotowski at the University of Chittagong.

His doctoral research, ‘Grotowski’s Lineage in Bengal: Employing Paratheatre to Address the Pre-Radicalisation Phase of Religious Extremism’, draws on Grotowski’s lineage in Bengal to explore and assess paratheatrical principles as a method for addressing this issue. The research investigates whether paratheatrical practice can address two pathways of pre-radicalisation vulnerability — social alienation and ideological activism — through practice-based interventions in Derry, Northern Ireland, and Chittagong, Bangladesh, contributing to the evidence base for arts-based interventions in countering religious extremism. This research is funded by the Vice-Chancellor’s Research Scholarship (VCRS) and supervised by Dr Giuliano Campo (Ulster University) and Dr Jennifer Goddard (Ulster University).

As a theatre practitioner and researcher with over fifteen years of experience, Shamim has worked across traditional and ritual performance, theatre for development, and actor training. His directorial credits include numerous productions in Bangladesh and India. His practice is situated within Grotowski’s living lineage in Bengal. Through paratheatre, his work seeks a mode of meeting that can transcend the categories that divide human beings from one another.