The Department of Humanities and Social Sciences is involved in research and teaching. It offers higher degree programs leading to the award of Doctoral and Master’s degrees. The Master’s program in General Studies, M.Sc. (Tech), is oriented along the streams of Media and Communication as well as Development Studies.
“What do we propose to do here? We want to teach real science, whether it is engineering, chemistry, humanities, physics or any other branch. We want to develop a scientific approach in Pilani, which means there would be no dogma. There will be a search for truth”.
Vision of Ghanshyam Das Birla, founder of BITS Pilani
The study of humanities was thus part of the founding vision of the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani. This enabling vision, represented by the lotus at the heart of the emblem of BITS Pilani, continues to guide the Institute in its plan document Vision 2020: Mission 2015 that envisages an ever greater emphasis for the humanities in the curriculum, making it mandatory for all degree programmes.
With twenty faculty members working in and across the disciplines of Communication Studies, Development Studies, Digital Media, Film Studies, Geography, History, Language, Literature, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology and Public Administration, the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences offers over thirty elective courses -on an average, per semester- for students across disciplines and degree programmes. The laboratories for languages, music and Creative Media along with a rich collection of materials in the BITS Pilani Library are vital elements in the pedagogy of the courses taught here. Many of these are interdisciplinary, and all courses combine rigour with variety in both teaching and learning, which is a legacy bequeathed by a tradition of over five decades.
The study of humanities and languages in Pilani may be traced back to 1943, when the Birla Intermediate College became a Degree College. With the founding of the Birla Institute of Technology and Science as a degree awarding university in 1964, undergraduate and post-graduate programmes in the humanities were initiated. Since then, BITS Pilani has witnessed continuous Moulding in the study of the humanities. The degree programmes of B.A (General) and M.A in Economics, English, Hindi, History, and Political Science were initiated in 1964 and continued until 1973-4, facilitating a reordering of the internal organizational structure with the formation of cluster groups in Economics, Humanistic Studies, and Languages. The Humanistic Studies group and the Languages group were transformed into independent departments, and remained so until 2012, when the two coalesced into the Department of Humanities and Languages. However, many research projects and taught courses offered by the Department contain elements from the Social Sciences. In recognition of this interdisciplinary character as well as to bring uniformity in nomenclature across the four campuses of the University, the Department was renamed as Department of Humanities and Social Sciences in October 2013.
Professor & Head of Department, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
Feminism, Cinema, Language & Literature
Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
Film Studies, ELT, Computer Mediated Communication, Business Communication, Soft Skills
Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
Advertising, ELT, Media Studies
Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
Ph.D. Topic - Language Revitalisation
Ph.D. Supervisor -
Dr. Devika Sangwan ,
Co. Supervisor -
Ph.D. Topic - An Analysis of Select Issues and Debates on Indian Secularism circa 1950-1965
Ph.D. Supervisor -
Dr. Harikrishnan Gopinadhan Nair,
Co. Supervisor -
Ph.D. Topic - Founding Gauhati University: A History of the Movement for a University in Assam (1917-1948)
Ph.D. Supervisor -
Dr. Harikrishnan Gopinadhan Nair,
Co. Supervisor -
Ph.D. Supervisor -
Dr. Devika Sangwan ,
Co. Supervisor -
Dr. Muhammed Afzal P,
Ph.D. Topic - Analyzing the Taliban Factor in China’s Internal and External Security Management
Ph.D. Supervisor -
Dr. Veena Ramchandran,
Co. Supervisor -
Ph.D. Topic - (Non)-Heteronormative Representations in English Language Teaching: Analysing Textbooks and Classroom Pedagogy
Ph.D. Supervisor -
Dr. Pushp Lata,
Co. Supervisor -
Ph.D. Topic - Lean Pedagogical Intervention in Liberal Arts Courses: A Design-based Approach
Ph.D. Supervisor -
Dr. Pushp Lata,
Co. Supervisor -
Ph.D. Topic - Micro Modelling Workplace Flourishing and its determinants in organizations
Ph.D. Supervisor -
Dr. Rajneesh Choubisa,
Co. Supervisor -
Ph.D. Topic - The ‘Southern Question’: Caste, Culture and the Question of Identity in Contemporary Tamil Nadu
Ph.D. Supervisor -
Dr. Prateek,
Co. Supervisor -
Dr. Muhammed Afzal P,
Ph.D. Topic - Transnational approach to Indigenous Ecocinema: A Study of Narrative Form and Structure
Ph.D. Supervisor -
Dr. Sushila Shekhawat,
Co. Supervisor -
Ph.D. Topic - LAL DED, KASHMIR SHAIVISM AND MODERN PHYSICS - A SYNCRETIC VIEW OF REALITY
Ph.D. Supervisor -
Dr. Anupam Yadav,
Co. Supervisor -
Dr. Kumar Sankar Bhattacharya,
Ph.D. Topic - STEM and NONSTEM (STEAM) Academic Choices- Comprehending Higher Education Readiness Through Socio-Emotional Competencies and Educational Attainment in Schools
Ph.D. Supervisor -
Dr. Tanu Shukla,
Co. Supervisor -
Dr. Virendra Singh Nirban,
Ph.D. Topic - Revisiting Farmers’ Protest of 2020: Unpacking Women’s Participation and their Representation by the Mainstream and Alternative Media
Ph.D. Supervisor -
Dr. Sailaja Nandigama,
Co. Supervisor -
Ph.D. Topic - E-Governing Sports: An Actor Network Analysis of digital governance in Sports Authority of India (SAI)
Ph.D. Supervisor -
Dr. Sunita Raina,
Co. Supervisor -
Dr. Madhurima Das,
Ph.D. Topic - Metadiscourse in Academic Writing: A Corpus-based Genre Approach to Teaching
Ph.D. Supervisor -
Dr. Chintalapalli Vijayakumar,
Co. Supervisor -
Ph.D. Topic - Mediatized Novel: Mass Media and the Indian Novel from 1990 to Present
Ph.D. Supervisor -
Dr. Sushila Shekhawat,
Co. Supervisor -
Ph.D. Topic - Women, Water and Development: An Ethnographic study of Policy and Practice within Rajasthan's Water Governance
Ph.D. Supervisor -
Dr. Sailaja Nandigama,
Co. Supervisor -
Tamali Bhattacharyya
Ph.D. Topic - Participatory Forest Management and Sustainable Livelihoods
Ph.D. Supervisor -
Dr. Sailaja Nandigama,
Co. Supervisor -
Ph.D. Topic - Flourishing Workplaces vis-a-vis Dark Side of Organizational Communication: Towards an Integrated Framework for Building Positive Institutions
Ph.D. Supervisor -
Dr. Rajneesh Choubisa,
Co. Supervisor -
Ph.D. Topic - Self as an Aesthetic Phenomenon: An Inquiry into Nietzsche and Abhinavagupta’s Philosophies
Ph.D. Supervisor -
Dr. Anupam Yadav,
Co. Supervisor -
Head of Department of Humanities and Social Science. Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani - 333031 (Rajasthan) India.
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