South Asian Cultural/Civilizational Studies

Preamble

South Asia Foundation for Academic Research (SAFAR) is going to organize a five-day seminar-workshop on South Asian Studies in 2026 (Dates and Venue: to be finalized).

Cultural/Civilizational Studies is predominantly contemporary in focus in its academic orientation.  Contemporaneous is also about how the past appears in its very connections with the present ideas and facts.  In the context of the above propositional statements, the focus of the workshop is about the nature of culture and civilization in South Asia. Since culture and civilization are plural and contested areas of study, such discourses on South Asia need theoretical interpretive mechanisms to study culture and its nuances, like margin and center. These nuances are included as categories for the workshop.

Theories provide explanation, reveal and analyze the nature and role of facts and ideas in functional and methodological ways so as to study them within possible patterns of understanding. Such patterns are necessary because to study the vastness of cultural/civilizational studies in South Asia, some distinct proposed notables may provide a platform for the participants to initiate discussions and, at the same time enlarge and improvise on the subject matters of the proposed workshop.

The anthology focuses on three notables to structure the contents.

1. Underlying Social Structures
2. Hegemonic Structures
3. Discursive Nexus