HSS IITGN – IIT Gandhinagar

Events & Talks

Campus Life

HSS Initiatives

Medical Humanities Colloquy

August 02, 2021

Medical Humanities Colloquy

Narrative Medicine, Clinical Linguistics, Performing Identities in the Clinical Space, Narratives of Resilience, and so on.

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Social Justice Seminar Series

February 25, 2021

Social Justice Seminar Series

Social Justice Seminar Series at IITGN is an attempt to initiate discussions on the themes of marginalization, exclusion, inequality and discrimination against…

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Graduate Seminar Series

February 25, 2021

Graduate Seminar Series

HSS-Graduate Seminar Series is a student initiative to serve as a platform for students to share their latest work and receive constructive feedback from their peers.

Apply

Dialogues

February 25, 2021

Dialogues

An initiative of HSS@IITGN, ‘Dialogues’ celebrates IIT Gandhinagar’s ethos of cross- disciplinary interactions and exchange of ideas, thoughts and research…

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IIT Gandhinagar Campus

Academic programs

MA in Society & Culture

December 17, 2015

MA in Society & Culture

The Masters in Society and Culture, a unique program conceptualized and implemented by the faculty at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar…

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Minor in HSS

August 05, 2015

Minor in HSS

The Humanities & Social Sciences (HSS) group at IIT Gandhinagar (IITGN) currently offers training in critical inquiry and understanding of the social world…

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PhD Program

August 05, 2015

PhD Program

The program develops around the existing broad areas of research: Linguistic Anthropology, Conservation and Human-Animal rapport, Digital Humanities…

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News & Updates

Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Gandhinagar

Tweets by HSSiitgn1

hss_iitgandhinagar

We have the third talk of the HSS Medical Humaniti

We have the third talk of the HSS Medical Humanities Colloquy coming up. As the coordinators of this seminar series, Dr. Arka Chattopadhyay and Ms. Swati Joshi would like to invite you to this talk scheduled on 19th October at 5:30pm (IST).

Title: Metagnosis
Speaker; Danielle Spencer
Date: 19-10-2021
Time: 5:30 PM IST
Zoom link:https://iitgn-ac-in.zoom.us/j/95175911402
Meeting ID: 951 7591 1402
Passcode: 979115

Abstract: Bridging memoir with key concepts in narratology, philosophy and history of medicine, and disability studies, this book identifies and names the phenomenon of metagnosis: the experience of learning in adulthood of a longstanding condition. It can occur when the condition has remained undetected (e.g. colorblindness) and/or when the diagnostic categories themselves have shifted (e.g. ADHD). More broadly, it can occur with unexpected revelations bearing upon selfhood, such as surprising genetic test results. Though this phenomenon has received relatively scant attention, learning of an unknown condition is often a significant and bewildering revelation, one that subverts narrative expectations and customary categories. How do we understand these revelations? In addressing this topic Spencer approaches narrative medicine as a robust research methodology comprising interdisciplinarity, narrative attentiveness, and the creation of writerly texts.
Beginning with Spencer's own experience, the book explores the issues raised by metagnosis, from communicability to narrative intelligibility to different ways of seeing. Next, it traces the distinctive metagnostic narrative arc through the stages of recognition, subversion, and renegotiation, discussing this trajectory in light of a range of metagnostic experiences—from Blade Runnerto real-world midlife diagnoses. Finally, it situates metagnosis in relation to genetic revelations and the broader discourses concerning identity. Spencer proposes that better understanding metagnosis will not simply aid those directly affected, but will serve as a bellwether for how we will all navigate advancing biomedical and genomic knowledge, and how we may fruitfully interrogate the very notion of identity

We invite you to a special colloquium on ‘Cognit

We invite you to a special colloquium on ‘Cognitive Illusion and Immediate Experience: Perspectives from Buddhist Philosophy’ by Prof Jay L Garfield, Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy, Smith College. Professor Garfield is an internationally acclaimed expert on Buddhist philosophical traditions. He is also the Professor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, Visiting Professor of Philosophy and Buddhist Studies at Harvard Divinity School, and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the Central University of Tibetan Studies.

Date: October 28
Time: 7 pm
Registration can be done at https://bit.ly/3aqiJzl

For queries, please write to sudiptas@iitgn.ac.in

#CognitiveIllusion #Cognitive #BuddhistPhilosophy #Buddhist #Buddhism

Hello friends! We are back on Wednesday, October 1

Hello friends!
We are back on Wednesday, October 13 (5:00-6:30 pm), with a talk by Ambassador Gautam Mukhopadhaya. All are welcome to attend.

Date: Wednesday, October 13; Time: 5:00 pm- 6:30 pm (IST)

Zoom ID: 98379747835
Passcode: Y164HXkm
https://iitgn-ac-in.zoom.us/j

We are happy to invite you to an HSS IIT Gandhinag

We are happy to invite you to an HSS IIT Gandhinagar talk on the "Recent Developments in Afghanistan: Implications for India's Interests" by Mr. Talmiz Ahmad, the former Indian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE. The talk will be moderated by Dr. Deepak Singhania, Assistant Professor, HSS.

More details below:

Time: Wednesday, September 29, 2021 3:30pm (IST)

https://iitgn-ac-in.zoom.us/j/99876907756

Meeting ID: 998 7690 7756
Passcode: 597559

The talk will explore the background to the success of the Taliban in taking control of Afghanistan after a twenty-year conflict, the first impressions relating to government-formation in Kabul, what the implications of these developments mean for the country, the region and big-power rivalry, and how India's interests are likely to be impacted.

Talmiz Ahmad is former Indian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE and Ram Sathe Chair Professor for International Studies, Symbiosis International University, Pune.

On Wednesday, September 29, "Dialogues" invites yo

On Wednesday, September 29, "Dialogues" invites you to a talk on

"Spatio-temporal trends in public behavior to COVID-19 protocols and vaccine hesitancy in India: Findings from a nation-wide web survey of Facebook users"

The speakers are, Dr Soumi Roy Chowdhury (Consultant, NCAER) and Santanu Pramanik (Senior Fellow, NCAER and Deputy Director, National Data Innovation Centre, NCAER).
The talk will be moderated by Dr Malavika Subramanyam (HSS | IITGN).
Please see below for further details:

Date: Wednesday, September 29; Time: 5:00-6:30 pm

Zoom codes for joining: ID: 93059342516; Passcode: tsHxpei3

Link: https://iitgn-ac-in.zoom.us/j/93059342516
All are welcome to attend.

Follow Dialogues@HSS-IITGN activities at https://sites.iitgn.ac.in/dialogues/

Abstract: In this talk the audience will get a glimpse of the COVID-19 Trends and Impact Survey (CTIS), previously known as COVID-19 Symptom Survey (CSS). University of Maryland and Carnegie Mellon University in partnership with Facebook have been conducting this survey daily in more than 200 countries and in over 50 languages since April 2020. Multiple versions of the survey have been introduced overtime with new survey questions being added in different rounds. Facebook users around the world are invited to take part in the surveys to self-report COVID-19-related symptoms, their testing behavior, willingness to vaccinate, concerns and barriers towards vaccination, mental health and economic security, among other topics. We will look specially into the Indian sample where the data leverages Facebook’s active user base of more than 300 million users in India. Among the various facets of the survey, for the talk we will explore the spatio-temporal trends in individual response to COVID-19 protocols and vaccine hesitancy. Specifically, we will see how people have adhered to the three basic protocols such as mask use, hand washing and social distancing norms over time and if associations can be seen with the emergence of second wave of COVID. We will also look into how vaccine hesitancy in India evolved over time, the main reasons behind hesitancy and the role of media in addressing the concern levels. A spatial v

PHD applications open now! Deadline October 24! Ap

PHD applications open now!
Deadline October 24! Apply online. For more information please visit the website as mentioned in the poster.

As part of the course, HSS 517: Experiments in Eur

As part of the course, HSS 517: Experiments in European Modernism, we are having a special lecture this Thursday at 6:30pm on Modernist Theatre by Prof. Stanley Gontarski, the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English at Florida State University, United States. The talk is open to all. We look forward to your presence!

Please find talk details below:

Title: “Performing in Everyday Life” by Prof. Stanley Gontarski
Time: Sep 23, 2021 6:30 pm (IST) and 9 am (EST)
Joining Link: https://iitgn-ac-in.zoom.us/j/94524435275
Meeting ID: 945 2443 5275
Passcode: 432940

Abstract: Theatre has always been something of a mercurial if not chimeric art, a hybrid form, an amalgam of ritual (re)enactments, performed beliefs, archival records, and human imagination, unstable and even pliable by definition since its realization relies on a multiplicity of sources and facilitators coalescing under unstable, tenuous and often improvisational conditions. The result is invariably a composite beast, a fusion of forms reconfigured in each iteration. Unsurprisingly, then, what we call theatre has what Richard Schechner calls “blurry boundaries” or here fuzzy edges, if edges it has at all since edges, like boundaries, suggest demarcation, territory, borders, zones, a demesne, a pale, that is, limits, and the art of contemporary performance cuts across, runs through, is entangled with, bleeds into not only many another contemporary art form but intersects with and overlaps popular entertainments and everyday activities, religious and secular, so that the borders, distinctions, boundaries, even generic separations are often indistinguishable among acts, kinetic and performative activities. Moreover, much contemporary or alternative theatre practice, in particular, develops in defiance of a mimetic tradition, the so-called realistic or illusionary threads of performative art with their emphases on architectural and material validity, their focus on family constellations and commitments to simulations of epistemologically stable and so familiar worlds. In his seminal textbook, Performance Studies, Richard Schechner details what he sweepingly calls “Performing in Everyday Life”

Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Gandhinagar an

Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Gandhinagar and Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University is excited to announce an Online Workshop on 'Revisiting the “Captive Mind:” Intellectual Imperialism in the Contemporary Asian Academy'.

Here are the details:

Date: 25 September 2021
Time: 10:30 AM IST/2 PM JST--2 PM IST/5:30 PM JST

Join the Zoom Meeting
https://kyoto-u-edu.zoom.us/j/87489670907?pwd=ckZvY2NaS3p5YnZyTmxMdGZRbTU2UT09
Meeting ID: 874 8967 0907
Passcode: 419100

Abstract of the workshop:

Looking back at the formation of academic research and institutes in Asia, Syed Hussain Alatas wrote an influential paper describing the situation as “intellectual imperialism.” He argued that even if actual colonial power structures were dismantled, there still remained in large segments of contemporary Asian academic production, a “captive mind” which was “incapable of forming original problems” due to the continuation of structures which privilege modes of knowing directly imported from western scholarship. Syed Farid Alatas continued his father’s work, theorizing a “global division of labour” where the non-West continued to be dependent on Europe and North America for theoretical and material resources for academic production.

This workshop seeks to understand and critically examine the relevance of intellectual imperialism today as Asian universities pursue a goal of internationalization in attempts to reach a global standard. Policies such as promotion of publishing in journals with an “impact factor” (i.e. journals which are operated from the imperialist centres of Europe or North America), or hiring academics trained in these centres over indigenously trained academics are examples of such efforts. These policies coincide with ongoing developmentalist logics in which discourses from the imperialist centres continue to shape academic disciplinary knowledge production in Asian countries.

We take great pleasure in announcing a book launch

We take great pleasure in announcing a book launch at Dialogues@IITGN.

On Wednesday, September 15, "Dialogues" will officially launch Prof. Nishaant Choksi (Assistant Professor, HSS, IITGN) recently published book,

'Graphic Politics in Eastern India: Script and the Quest for Autonomy' (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021).
Prof. Jaison Manjaly, Head of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Gandhinagar, will do the honours on behalf of the discipline. This will be followed by a panel discussion based on the book.
Prof. Nishaant Choksi will be joined on the panel by Pranjali Kulkarni (Doctoral student, Cog.Science, IIT Gandhinagar) and Dr Rahi Soren (Assistant. Professor Department of Oceanographic Studies, Jadavpur University).

All are welcome to attend. Please see below for further details:

Date: Wednesday, September 15; Time: 5:00-6:30 pm

Zoom link: https://iitgn-ac-in.zoom.us/j/99362550397

Passcode: yE1ae979

About the Book:

Investigating the communicative practices of indigenous Santali speakers in eastern India, Nishaant Choksi examines the overlooked role of script in regional movements for autonomy to provide one of the first comprehensive theoretical and ethnographic accounts of 'graphic politics'.

Based on extensive fieldwork in the villages of southwestern West Bengal, Choksi explores the deployment of Santali scripts, including a newly created script called Ol Chiki, in Bengali-dominated local markets, the education system and in the circulation of print media. He shows how manipulating the linguistic landscape and challenging the idea of a vernacular enables Santali speakers to delineate their own political domains and scale their language on local, regional and national levels. In doing so, they contest Bengali-speaking upper castes' hegemony over public spaces and institutions, as well as the administrative demarcations of the contemporary Indian nation-state.

Bio of speakers:

Dr Nishaant Choksi

Nishaant Choksi is currently working as an Assistant Professor in Linguistics in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar. He completed his Ph. D in Linguistic Anthropology from the University of Michiga

We have the second talk of the HSS Medical Humanit

We have the second talk of the HSS Medical Humanities Colloquy coming up. Ms. Swati Joshi (Doctoral Candidate, HSS) and Dr. Arka Chattopadhyay (Faculty, HSS), as the coordinators of this seminar series, would like to invite you to this talk scheduled on 14th September at 5:30pm (IST).

Title: Covidiots! Shame, Stigma and Bad Words during Covid-19

Speaker: Dr. Arthur Rose

Abstract: In this talk, I consider the role that shame and stigma have played in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and how this was facilitated by the emergence of a specific language designed to name, shame and blame. Focusing on “covidiot”, a term used to target any and all behaviours deemed socially unacceptable during the pandemic, I follow the term’s increasing popularity on Twitter through March 2020, address its ableist connotations, and show how it fits into the historical tendency to question competence during an epidemic. If these investigations show that the term has more troubling implications than its gimmicky appearance suggests, equally evident is the semi-serious, semi-jocular manner in which it is often used. This mismatch, I want to suggest, makes “covidiot” particularly at risk of generating what Denise Riley calls “the remorseless afterlife” of “malignant speech.” Drawing on Riley’s work on guilt, shame and injurious speech, I address the ways that accusations of “covidiocy” may get “stuck under the skin”, with possible health implications for the future.

Link: https://iitgn-ac-in.zoom.us/j/97159609227

Meeting ID: 971 5960 9227
Passcode: 590426

Date & Time: 14-9-2021, 5:30 PM IST

Arthur Rose is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of English and the Wellcome Centre for the Cultures and Environments of Health at the University of Exeter, where he works on two projects: the Wellcome Trust funded Shame and Medicine Project and the UKRI-AHRC funded Scenes of Shame and Stigma in COVID-19. Together with Luna Dolezal and Fred Cooper, he is currently writing a book, COVID-19 and Shame: Political Emotions and Public Health in the UK, under contract with Bloomsbury Academic.

HSS faculty Prof. Alok Kanungo has a forthcoming c

HSS faculty Prof. Alok Kanungo has a forthcoming co-edited volume from Springer!

Congrats to our MA students who won medals!

Congrats to our MA students who won medals!

Hello Friends, Dialogues @IITGN is happy to announ

Hello Friends,
Dialogues @IITGN is happy to announce its first event of this academic year (2021-22), on August 25, Wednesday, at 5 pm.
Please join us on this day to listen to a fascinating talk by the eminent scholar, Professor, G.N. Devy. All are welcome to attend.

See the poster below for further details.

Join us this evening: The discipline of Humanitie

Join us this evening:

The discipline of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Gandhinagar is organising a workshop aimed at examining human-animal relations at the 'margins' through anti-caste socio-ecological understanding titled "Human-Animal Relations at the Margin: A quest for social justice" during August 17-18. The keynote talk is on the subject ‘Love Beyond the Holy Cow Hindu Cosmopolitanism and the Search for a Vegetarian Dog’ on August 17, at 5 pm. The speaker, Prof Suryakant Waghmore, Professor of Sociology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay, and a public sociologist, academic and writer, will focus the talk on changing place of dogs in upper-caste sociation to understand and analyse the dynamic nature of compassion towards animals amongst pure castes.

Join the meeting on Zoom by using the following credentials:
Meeting ID: 91041632323
Passcode: 761833

#HumanAnimalRelations

All, HSS-Graduate Seminar Series announces the fi

All,

HSS-Graduate Seminar Series announces the first talk of the series for the upcoming semester. Please find the details of the talk and the poster below.

Title: Urban Foodscapes of Ahmedabad

Speaker: Jerene George (Doctoral Scholar, HSS, IITGN.)

Discussant: Maithili Tagare (Doctoral Scholar, HSS, IITGN.)

Time and Date: August 11, Wednesday, 5:30-6:30 p.m.

Meeting Link: meet.google.com/wbr-qtqp-rxp

About the Speaker: Jerene is a doctoral student at Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Gandhinagar. She has a masters degree in English Literature from the University of Hyderabad. As part of her doctoral research, she is studying varied manifestations of cultural and identity politics around food and its role in shaping the urban, cosmopolitan foodscape of Ahmedabad.

Abstract: Ahmedabad is a city with multiple borders. The city’s public food cultures showcase the growing popularity of ‘hybrid’ or ‘fusion’ cuisine that stands for middle class articulation of global citizenship. My research questions the idea of ‘cultural diversity’ within cosmopolitan food cultures by illustrating how marginal gustatory experiences get overshadowed in the name of global consumption practices. The paper depicts how pizza-one of the most popular fast food choices in the city has come to represent middle-class dreams and aspirations for global living by tracing its popularity among Gujaratis from 1980s to the present. By shedding light on the often unnoticed or overlooked linkages of the city’s urbanity with a global vegetarian affair, the paper will shed insights on the multiple and emerging culinary spatialities within urbanising Western Ahmedabad.

We look forward to an active discussion and hope to see you all here.

The Humanities and Social Sciences at Indian Insti

The Humanities and Social Sciences at Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar is initiating the Medical Humanities Colloquy with an aim to identify, address, and discuss the issues that plague various disciplines of Medicine, Medical Sociology, Clinical Anthropology, Medical Theatre, etc., falling under the rubric of Medical Humanities. The colloquy intends to facilitate a platform to the academics, artists, medical professionals, medical humanities researchers, etc., around the world to share their experiences, and research.

Dr. Arka Chattopadhyay (Assistant Professor, HSS, IIT Gandhinagar), and Ms. Swati Joshi (Doctoral Candidate, HSS, IIT Gandhinagar), as the coordinators of the colloquy, invite you to the inaugural talk scheduled on 13th August at 5:30pm IST.

Title: Illness and Medicine in Theatre: Aesthetic, Disciplinary, and (Inter)personal Crossings

Speaker: Dr. Vinia Dakari

Abstract: This talk aims to stir discussion among medical humanities scholars on the convergence of theatre, health and medicine and its aesthetic, social, and pedagogical aspects. By encompassing a renewed emphasis on the wellbeing of the human and the complexity of care in the 21st century, medical humanities, and theatre and medicine in particular, will also be examined vis-a-vis the —disciplinary as well as personal— challenges it poses to researchers in a rapidly changing world.

ZOOM Link: https://iitgn-ac-in.zoom.us/j/92419222249

Meeting ID: 924 1922 2249
Passcode: 113013

Date & Time: August 13, 5:30PM (IST)

Bio: Vinia Dakari is Adjunct Lecturer at the Department of English Language and Literature, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She is the Greek Representative for the Arts Health Early Career Research Network (ECRN) and regular Working Group member of the Greek Cancer Society’s Centre for Support, Education and Research in Psychosocial Oncology, Athens. She is co-editor of the “Medicine and/in Theatre” issue of Critical Stages/Scènes Critiques, the online journal of the International Association of Theatre Critics. Since the onset of the COVID-19 epidemic, she has facilitated live virtual Narrative Medicine sessions in Greek in collaborati

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Instagram post 17895358259106695

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We are happy to announce the "Camp HSS 2021" for s

We are happy to announce the "Camp HSS 2021" for school children (standard 8-12) designed to share the fun, excitement, and pleasure of doing Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS).

https://hss.iitgn.ac.in/camp/

The Camp will be held online during July 30 - August 1, 2021. Camp HSS introduces the fascinating world of HSS and how it is interlinked with your personal and professional development. Develop critical, reflective, and logical thinking, empathy, and creativity. This year, the following modules are covered.

Origin of Thinking | Fred Coolidge | Professor, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

Human Decision Making | Sumitava Mukherjee | Assistant Professor, IIT Delhi

Gender and body | Leya Mathew | Assistant Professor, Ahmedabad University

Creative You | Sharmita Lahiri | Assistant Professor, IIT Gandhinagar

Prosperity, Poverty, and Inequality | Shyam Sunder | James L. Frank Professor, Yale University

War and Peace | Atul Singh | Editor-in-Chief, Fair Observer

Protecting the Planet | Ambika Aiyadurai | Assistant Professor, IIT Gandhinagar

Argumentation | Jaison Manjaly | Jasubhai Memorial Chair Professor, IIT Gandhinagar

The CampHSS would undoubtedly facilitate the transformation of school children as a thinker and influencer. For more details and registration, please visit the Camp HSS Webpage https://hss.iitgn.ac.in/camp/

HSS doctoral candidate Swati Joshi has been awarde

HSS doctoral candidate Swati Joshi has been awarded the prize for the best PG research presentation at the Association of Medical Humanities Conference, University of Limerick. Many congratulations to her!

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