Summer School for Doctoral Researchers
3-28 August 2026
Course Description
The world we inhabit is one of multiple entanglements: of humans with non-humans, life with non-life, bodies with the elements, matter with atmosphere, kin with strangers. This course interprets the term "environment" broadly to capture this complex techno-bio-socio matrix in which we live, work and study.
The complexity of these environmental entanglements requires a shift away from the anthropocentrism of modern knowledge-forms and towards relational ways of thinking that foreground interdependence and mediation. Locating itself in South Asia, the course explores how to reset our social and political compass in order to adequately face up to the contemporary world of ecological destitution, spiraling inequality, run-away technologies, geo-historical hierarchy and democratic backsliding.
The in-person course consists of twelve lectures, divided between three modules, and a few stand-alone informal conversations with specialized academics. The three modules are:
1. Urban Atmospheres
Instructor: Awadhendra Sharan
This module is about climate, microbes and particles. We shall explore how urban practices and atmospheric conditions have co-constituted life in South Asian cities over the past two centuries.
2. Sensory Entanglements
Instructor: Shivani Kapoor
Taking perception and experience as a site of inquiry, this module thinks through questions of embodiment, materiality, and sociality in order to explore the sensory entanglements through which we know, inhabit, and negotiate our worlds.
3. Media Technologies
Instructor: Vebhuti Duggal
From telephones to AI, media technologies don't just connect—they have become how we think and feel. By examining concepts such as (im)mediation, technicity, and materiality, this module will explore what it means to be human and/or machine in the contemporary world.
Application Details
PhD students from all social science and humanities disciplines are invited to apply, with a one page CV, a 250-word statement of purpose and a 250-word statement on PhD research, as detailed in the form. To apply, please click here.
Last date for application submission: 05 July 2026.
Successful applicants will be notified by 10 July 2026.
Late or incomplete applications will not be considered.
Course Fees: Rs 10,000 (Payable on selection to the course)
NOTE:
● CSDS will not provide any accommodation, travel allowance and stipend.
● Up to five partial fee waivers will be available for selected participants belonging to the SC and ST categories, for which supporting documentation will be required. Fee waivers will be considered after the selection process has been completed.
● A certificate will be given on successful completion of the course. A minimum of 75 percent attendance is compulsory for obtaining the certificate.
Please write to teaching@csds.in in case of any queries.
