Centre for the Study of Culture and Society

Established in 1998, the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), is a Bangalore-based, privately funded organization for independent research and teaching in the social sciences and humanities. In its short history, the Centre has already housed several research projects in areas as diverse as cinema, gender studies, Diaspora studies, political theory, urban studies, legal studies, religion and cultural history.

In five years the Center for the Study of Culture and society (CSCS) has carved a space for itself as an independent Academic research and training Center. The CSCS emphasized the development of pedagogic initiatives, especially by offering a full fledged Ph D Programme. An informed understanding of the arts is a significant feature of a meaningful general education at higher levels of learning. Increasingly, however, university departments will be compelled to bring into the classroom a range of cultural phenomena that are, for the moment, outside the pale of conventional teaching institutions.

IFA’s support enabled CSCS to design and develop its Educational Initiatives Programme (EIP) that sought to introduce cultural studies to the undergraduate students in Bangalore. The EIP developed eight courses in cultural studies and conducted nine workshops. These involved institutional collaborations with other educational/arts institutions including Christ College, Shrishti School of Design, Bangalore and Kuvempu University and with Ninasam.

Another facet of the EIP was the Library Fellowships Programme. This, partially supported by IFA provides fellowships to undergraduate faculty to develop research projects in cultural studies. The CSCS hopes that this will contribute towards the mapping of the field of Culture Studies, thus spawning valuable insights that will help build a stable foundation for the emerging discipline. The many academic partnerships envisioned by the CSCS with, for instance, the Centre for Media, Culture and History, New York University, and the Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths College, London, as well as Bangalore-based institutions like the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) and the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), will facilitate a variety of future programmes.