
Cities have been of major interest to Centre faculty, leading to diverse interventions through research, writing, teaching and art practice. There have been significant attempts to theorise the complex experience of cities, pre-modern, colonial and post-colonial. One study explored the underside of the Indian city through the phenomenon of piracy, while another productively mined the archive to discuss smoke, waste, and foul smell. Yet another project analysed the question of living together in a number of Asian cities. Air and water pollution, including that of rivers, and the ethics of mining have elicited faculty concern. A project on “cyber-mohallas” generated creative accounts of urban marginality.