Dear Sir/Madam

The PhD fellows of the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bangalore (http://www.cscsarchive.org/) are organizing a workshop (Young Researchers’ Workshop 2010) from March 25-27, 2010, for doctoral and post doctoral fellows registered with a recognized university or research centre in India. Please find attached a concept note for the workshop with details concerning participation. We shall be sending a hard copy of the same to your institution within a few days.

We take this opportunity to welcome research scholars from your institution for an enriching experience of sharing their research work with other researchers as also engaging with the research interests of young scholars from across the country. We look forward to the participation of research students from your institution for the event.

Please circulate this to your colleagues, students and  friends.

Many Thanks,

Warm Regards

Organizers

ps. Kindly contact the following persons in case of any further queries. Ranjini Krishnanranjini_k@cscs.res.in

or Elizabeth Thomas elizabeth@cscs.res.in

Concept Note

The Young Researchers' Workshop is an event initiated by the research students of the

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bangalore since 2003. It aims to engage

with critical research in contemporary Social Sciences and Humanities in India focussing on

interdisciplinary projects and new methodological tools.

Cultural Studies has over the years challenged the rigid boundaries of disciplines by insisting

on the need for inter-disciplinary research that can actively engage with the question of

culture as an organizing principle of human societies. However, new challenges seem to be

emerging today from diverse locations about the descriptive and explanatory capacities of

Cultural Studies’ frameworks and methods in its ability to map and respond to social realities

and lived experiences. The 2010 Young Researchers’ Workshop which works with the broad

thematic ‘Culture, Experience and Knowledge Production’ wants to further critical

engagement with the question of knowledge and experience by attempting to go beyond

cultural relativism or an unproblematic rendition of dierences. This requires a closer look at

the founding assumptions and presuppositions that animate present day cultural theory

and practice as also newer and better epistemological grids that can recongure research

towards greater usefulness in understanding varied experiences. Such an exercise would

also demand a clearer understanding and perhaps recasting of the questions raised by

domains such as gender, politics and ethics and a fresh engagement with new spaces such

as the digital. The workshop is also an attempt towards a dialogue with emergent research

from disciplines such as law, medicine, science and technology that foreground questions

related to culture and experience.

The workshop aims to bring together research that provides new insights into the above

concerns from areas related to democracy, development, gender, caste, ethnicity,

urban/rural spaces, visuality, media, cyberspace, politics, law ethics, science and society, and

education. The workshop will provide an opportunity for doctoral and post-doctoral

researchers from dierent parts of the country to discuss their areas of study and enrich the

methodological and theoretical rigour of their work. It will be structured around presentations

by resource persons on selected sub-themes followed by presentations of the research

work of the doctoral students with focussed responses from individual respondents, and

general discussions. The nalized programme schedule with the list of sub themes and

possible resource persons will be sent soon after receiving the applications.

Interested doctoral and post doctoral researchers please write in/or send an e-mail with an

abstract of 400-600 words (or no more than two typed pages) of the paper you intend to

present which draws on your current research work, along with your current c.v. indicating

academic aliation, postal address and email IDs latest by February 1, 2010 to the

address/email id given below. Selected participants will be informed via e-mail within a

week of receiving the applications. The nal paper to be presented in the workshop would

be expected by March 15, 2010. Travel and accommodation will be provided for the participants.

YOUNG RESEARCHERS’ WORKSHOP 2010

Culture, Experience and Knowledge Production