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.

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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

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

Instagram post 17895358259106695

Instagram post 17895358259106695

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Instagram post 17940758935541778

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!

Ahana Ghosh, HSS doctoral student, has been chosen

Ahana Ghosh, HSS doctoral student, has been chosen for the 'Rewriting World Archaeology mentoring programme' for 2021-22 and is one of 8 recipients from South Asia. Many congratulations to her!

This programme is designed to equip a cohort of Early Career Researchers and Professionals (ECRs) with the necessary knowledge and skills: to access and publish in international, peer-reviewed academic journals, to develop and lead bold research agendas, to prepare grant applications, and to share their results with the public. The programme consists of a structured 10-month (June 2021 to March 2022) series of online workshops and one-to-one mentoring sessions, supported by a variety of digital resources. She will be assigned two mentors and will participate in one of three regional workgroups, which bring together established researchers, heritage professionals and academic journal editors from South Asia, the Middle East and Africa, from Durham University (UK), and from Antiquity―a world-leading archaeology journal. The programme will culminate with a global summit bringing together the participants of all three regional groups, with subsequent opportunities to publish in Antiquity. The initiative is funded as part of the British Academy Writing Workshops 2021 sponsored by the UK Government's Global Challenges Research Fund.

Camellia Biswas, HSS doctoral student has been cho

Camellia Biswas, HSS doctoral student has been chosen as one of the recipients of the Conservation - Inlaks Ravi Shankaran Small Grants for the year 2021-22. Many congratulations to her!

Education Times does a detailed story on the IIT G

Education Times does a detailed story on the IIT Gandhinagar MA programme.

IITGN is delighted to invite applications from you

IITGN is delighted to invite applications from young doctorates for its second call of Early-Career Fellowship (IITGN-ECF, 2021) which offers the opportunity to work on exciting research problems in a creative and interdisciplinary ecosystem. The fellowship is a super-exciting opportunity for young doctorates to work with some highly-qualified faculty members at IITGN on interesting research problems and projects that lead to significant research contributions. With the possibility of extraordinary personal and professional growth, IITGN-ECF would prepare you for an independent futuristic academic career.

The selected fellows will get a fellowship of ₹𝟭 𝗹𝗮𝗸𝗵 𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵 and a professional development grant of up to ₹𝟮 𝗹𝗮𝗸𝗵 𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿.

Kindly note that scholars who have successfully defended their PhD thesis from an Indian Institution/University on or after January 1, 2020, should apply before June 7, 2021. The candidates who have submitted their doctoral thesis or expected to submit in the next two-three months are also welcome to apply.

Head on to our website for more details. https://bit.ly/3tgIiuH

#EarlyCareerFellowship #ECF #Doctorates #DoctoralStudents #Career #AcademicJobs #PostdocOpprtunities

Our MA student Dipayan Pal pens an opinion piece t

Our MA student Dipayan Pal pens an opinion piece titled 'Busting the myth of a failed meritocracy' for The Pioneer on 1st May 2021!

This Friday (23 April), we have the last Social Ju

This Friday (23 April), we have the last Social Justice Seminar of this semester.

Title: Abjection of youth/sexuality in contemporary Kerala

Date: 23 April 2021 Fri
Time: 5:00 - 6:30 pm

Speaker: J. Devika
Affiliation: Centre for Development Studies, Kerala.

Moderator: Udita Banerjee
Affiliation: PhD Scholar (HSS)

About the speaker: J Devika is a feminist researcher and teacher at the Centre for Development Studies, Kerala. She has contributed to the understanding of the history of gender, development, politics, and culture of modern Kerala. Her work is interdisciplinary, and she brings to bear her training as a historian on contemporary issues. She is interested in opening up the boundaries between academic and public and pedagogic discourses, the social sciences and humanities, and English and Malayalam. She also translates literature and social science between Malayalam and English, writes occasionally for children, besides offering commentary on contemporary politics in Kerala on www.kafila.online.

Abstract: This talk reflects broadly on the production of marginals in the context of Kerala State, India and more specifically, on the contemporary moment in which young people face the increased risk of abjection. I attempt to make sense of this by recounting the complex historical conjecture of demographic change and economic transformation subsequent shifts in the structure and functions of the family which seems to have intensified the disciplining of youth in Kerala. Further, I interpret the Kiss of Love protests (2014–2015) which originated in Kerala but spread to other places in India as an effort not only to challenge Hindutva violence in public spaces but also as an attempt to resist the more fundamental resistance to the abjection of the body and sexuality. I conclude with thoughts on further research.

Weblink:
https://iitgn-ac-in.zoom.us/j/96120604325?pwd=Y0dweFJLNWtNbU13dGVOaEFvVXNsdz09

Meeting ID: 961 2060 4325
Passcode: 229800

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