Humanities and Social Sciences

About us

Our department has faculty members specialising in a range of research areas from various disciplines. The department is committed to promoting value-oriented learning, respect for diversity, critical thinking, development of social political values and cognitive capacities required for examining the world around, cultural and aesthetic appreciation of various art forms and literary genres, and enhancement of language and employability skills among students.

Program

1) PhD Programme

The department has 16 full-time and 5 part-time Ph.D. students working in diverse disciplines: English Language and Literature, Sociology, Philosophy, Science Technology Studies, Gender Studies, Development Studies, Governance, Natural Resources Management, Public Policy, Cultural Studies, Disability Studies, Media and Film Studies, Disaster Studies, Public Administration, etc.

2) Minor in Public Policy

The Department of HSS offers a Minor in Public Policy. For further details, please click here.

3) Elective courses

We offer compulsory courses like Technical Report Writing along with elective courses in various areas of humanities and social sciences:

BITS F214 Science, Technology and Modernity
BITS F385 Introduction to Gender Studies
BITS F399 Humanistic Theories of Science and Technology
GS F211 Modern Political Concepts
GS F212 Environment, Development and Climate Change
GS F213 Development Theories
GS F221 Business Communication
GS F223 Introduction to Mass Communication
GS F231 Dynamics of Social Change
GS F232 Introductory Psychology
GS F233 Public Policy
GS F241 Creative Writing
GS F242 Cultural Studies
GS F245 Effective Public Speaking
GS F322 Critical Analysis of Literature and Cinema
GS F312 Applied Philosophy
GS F331 Techniques in Social Research
GS F332 Contemporary India
GS F333 Public Administration
HSS F222 Linguistics
HSS F228 Phonetics & Spoken English
HSS F232 Introduction to Development Studies
HSS F235 Introductory Philosophy
HSS F236 Symbolic Logic
HSS F237 Contemporary Indian English Fiction
HSS F242 Introduction to Phonology
HSS F243 Introduction to Critical Pedagogy
HSS F244 Crime and New Media
HSS F246 Philosophy of Nagarjuna
HSS F248 Introduction to Disability Studies
HSS F317 Introduction to Globalization
HSS F318 Introduction to Anthropology
HSS F325 Cinematic Adaptation
HSS F331 Sankara’s Thoughts
HSS F332 Cinematic Art
HSS F334 Srimad Bhagavad Gita
HSS F335 Literary Criticism
HSS F336 Modern Fiction
HSS F337 English Literary Forms and Movements
HSS F338 Comparative Indian Literature
HSS F340 Post Colonial Literatures
HSS F342 Advanced Communicative English
HSS F343 Professional Ethics
HSS F344 Heritage of India
HSS F346 International Relations
HSS F351 Social and Political Ecology
HSS F353 Philosophy of Aesthetics
HSS F361 Urban Policy and Governance
HSS F362 Local Governance and Participation
HSS F363 Disaster and Development
HSS F365 Science of Sustainable Happiness
HSS F368 Asian Cinemas and Cultures
HSS F369 Caste and Gender in India

Faculty

Our faculty members are dedicated to achieving excellence in teaching and research. They engage in externally funded research, publish regularly in reputed international journals and supervise Ph.D. students. They are invited by many institutions of higher learning to deliver lectures, conduct workshops and contribute as members on boards of studies.

Click here to visit faculty page

Facilities

Language Lab.
Psychoacoustic lab: Psychoacoustic lab is a Cognitive Science, Psychology and Language Sciences lab, situated at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani's Hyderabad Campus. The lab is led by Dr. Pranesh Bhargava.
Conference Hall: We have a well maintained conference hall equipped with audio-visual facilities. Our departmental academic events are conducted here.

Activities

Seminar/ workshop/ Talks: We regularly conduct guest lectures by experts in various fields.
The department plans to conduct, at regular intervals, writing and research methodology workshops and conferences related to broad areas of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Our department strives towards making the campus more gender sensitive. In this regard, we conduct essay writing competitions, poster making competitions, poetry recitation sessions, training programs, guest lectures, panel discussions, etc. Our faculty members have so far taken the lead in all such activities.
Several faculty members in the department are in-charge for various student clubs on the campus:
International Mother Language Day is celebrated by our department every year.
Previous visitors include Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor Michael Wutz, Dr. Balamukund Pandey, National Secretary of All India Historical Collection Project, M. Somasekhar, a Senior Deputy Editor and the Chief of Bureau of The Hindu Business Line and Dr Vijay Walia, the Director and Founder of Achievers League.
We support an annual literary event – Verba Maximus – organised by the English Languages Activity Society (ELAS). The events are held under two categories: Speaking and Writing. The speaking events include JAM, debate and GD. Poetry, story-writing and script-writing comprise the Writing events. Also, there are literary quizzes, treasure hunts and a lot of informal events like scrabble, hangman, etc. Our Spell Bee is being endorsed by the Indian Spell Bee, giving it a very high standard. During Verba Maximus, students get an opportunity to interact with famous literary personalities. Last time, students met celebrity writer Amish Tripathi and stand-up comedian Sorabh Pant.

NOTICE

Ph.D. Admissions

Click here for more details

Click here for Poster

Click here for Brochure

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Current JRF/SRF & Other Openings

Public Policy Workshop

The Department of Humanities and Social Sciences is conducting a Public Policy Workshop on 25th March 2023.

Click here for more details.

Ethics lecture series

HSS department invites everyone to Ethics lecture series.

First lecture to be held on 10th February 2022.

BITS Pilani