DEPARTMENT OF

Dr. Aswini S., PhD student of Dr. Amrita Deb, was awarded a Postdoc fellowship at University of Dalhousie in September 2023 and joined BITS Goa as Assistant Professor in December 2023.

Shankar Gugoloth, PhD student with Dr. Haripriya Narasimhan, has been awarded the Fulbright-Nehru doctoral fellowship for 2024-2025. Prof. Sangeeta Kamat at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, USA, will be his mentor

Student Achievements

Best Poster Award

Shema Abraham, PhD student working with Dr. Shubha Ranganathan, has received the Best Paper Award at the International Conference on Interdisciplinary Research in Social Science and Humanities (ICIRSSH), Chandigarh University.

Faculty Achievement

New book: Female Body Image and Beauty Politics in Contemporary Indian Literature and Culture, edited by Srirupa Chatterjee and Shweta Rao Garg from Temple University Press, Pennsylvania 2024.

Research in News

See below the two articles published in ToI highlighting the research work on Climate Change and Heat Action Plan by Aalok Khandekar

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Faculty Achievements

STS Infrastructure Award 2024

The editorial team of the diamond open access journal, 'Engaging Science, Technology, and Society (ESTS)' led by Dr. Aalok has been awarded the STS Infrastructure Award 2024 by the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S).

Faculty Achievements

Book Publication

Dr. Prakash Mondal recently published a book titled "The Cognitive Variation of Semantic Structures"

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Student Achievements

Job Offer

Mr. Kumar Shaurav, a PhD student working with Prof. Badri has received an offer of Assistant Professor Grade II at Indian Institute of Management Ranchi. He will be joining IIM Ranchi after successfully completing his viva voce.

Faculty Achievements

Research Grant

Dinabandhu Sethi has been awarded a research project by ICSSR for Empirical Research 2023-24. The project's title is "Jan Dhan Yojana and Affordable Access to Financial Services in Aspirational Districts of India".

Faculty Achievements

The Royal Society of Arts (RSA) Fellow

Prakash Mondal has been admitted as a Fellow of the RSA, London, established in 1754, and the goal of whose charter is to "embolden enterprise, enlarge science, refine art, improve our manufacturers and extend our commerce"

Faculty Achievements

ICSSR Major Research Project Grant to Shuhita Bhattacharjee, Mahati Chittem and Ankita Roy

Adolescent Sexual Health Education through Picture Books: Designing and Disseminating Picture Books on Sexual Health - Taking the Conversation to Children, Doctors, Teachers.

Faculty Achievements

Shuhita Bhattacharjee establishes the 19th-Century Research Diversities Network, South Asia Chapter, through a prestigious UKRI AHRC Research Grant with UK collaborator that lists Dept of LA as the global partner.

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Global Conclave 2024

Advancing Human Development in the Global South

Organized by Department of Liberal Arts, IITH, in collaboration with the Institute for Human Development, New Delhi

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Alumnus Achievement

Dr. Sanjiv Kumar
PhD student of Dr. Prabheesh has been appointed as Assistant Professor at Department of Economics Sciences, IIT Kanpur

Alumnus Achievement

Dr. Sudarshan Kottai
PhD student of Dr. Shubha Ranganathan has been appointed as Assistant Professor at IIT Palakkad

Best Presentation Award

Ms. KNSR Ratna
PhD student with Dr. Prakash Mondal

Paper entitled 'On the implementation of the algorithm for representation of discontinuity in natural language' in 5th International Conference on Natural Language Processing

Article by Dr. Aalok Khandekar

Urban Heat Exclusive story in Indian Express

KirIITH Climate Change Issue published by IITH

About Us

The Department of Liberal Arts at IITH Hyderabad is a leading centre for the study of a highly diverse range of subjects including Anthropology, Cognitive Science, Cultural Studies, Development Studies, Economics, English (Literature and Language), Linguistics, Psychology, Sociology, and Science and Technology Studies. The department is deeply committed to teaching innovative and intellectually stimulating courses to undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as to world-class research in cutting-edge areas. In addition, Liberal Arts at IIT Hyderabad places a lot of importance on interdisciplinary collaborations through projects and other academic collaborations of national and international importance. If the department boasts of a team of excellent faculty members, it also houses young students and scholars who deeply contribute to the department’s academic growth. Further, Liberal Arts at IIT Hyderabad is very proud of its alumni many amongst who are currently serving as faculty members in various national institutes and universities of repute or pursuing higher academics and socially relevant projects. Simply put, the department of Liberal Arts enriches the academic and creative life of the institute, encourages cutting-edge scholarship, and cultivates a deeper understanding of humanity at large.

Message from Head of the Department

It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Department of Liberal Arts at IIT Hyderabad! We offer a vibrant and diverse academic culture which is both cultivated and advanced by our team of exceptional and devoted faculty members. Drawing upon the classical model of education through intellectual inquiry and interweaving it with the progressive ideologies of a globalized and technologized world, our department houses various branches of the Humanities and the Social Sciences, while also offering several programs in the Creative and Performing Arts. Our mission is to excel in teaching and research not only in the core areas of the Humanities and the Social Sciences but also to harness the enormous possibilities that reside in interdisciplinary research in alliance with scientific and technical disciplines. We also aspire to facilitate collaborations and partnerships with reputed national and global academic organizations as well as individuals. In all, the Department of Liberal Arts at IIT Hyderabad seeks to foster a knowledge economy that contributes to scholarly growth, policy level transformations and, ultimately, to societal development.

Check the department brochure 2024

Prof. Srirupa Chatterjee

Head of the Department

Recent Achievement

GraamHeet Forbes Asia 100 to Watch List

GramHeet provides integrated postharvest services to smallholder farmers in India to prevent food grain losses and increase their income significantly. We provide decentralized storage, instant credit, and market linkages to smallholder farmers at the village level through a digital platform. Our innovative model of hermetic storage prevents food grain losses and increases shelf-life organically up to 16 months. Further, due to the convenient and affordable storage facility and instant credit, smallholder farmers avail of seasonal price gains and increase their income by up to 40%. In the last two years, we worked with more than 3500 farmers and prevented food grain losses of 1000 MT. We started in Yavatmal district of Maharashtra in Aug 2020. Today, we are working in the Akola and Parbhani districts of Maharashtra and the states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
"The journey of startup was not a simple linear line, through curves and edges, we powered on. The global recognition from Forbes Asia is indeed motivating and encouraging for us to continue our impact journey. Thanks to all our supporters for being with us on this journey and believing in our vision to build a sustainable food system where every farmer cultivates with dignity and feeds the world with pride." Shweta Thakare (Co-founder & COO)