The School of Humanities is engaged in research in the broad areas of philosophy, psychology, literature, fine arts, and culture. Research in the School currently focuses on philosophical foundations of sciences; cognitive sciences; scientific and philosophical studies of consciousness; Indian psychology and philosophy; history and philosophy of biology; archaeometalurgy and analysis of ancient metals; and translations of literary classics in Kannada into English.
Tracing Landscapes of the Past: Geospatial Approaches to Archaeology and Heritage Research
A Two-Week Hands-on Workshop: Geospatial Techniques for the Humanities
(28th December 2026- 8th January 2027)
Contemporary dance scholarship has increasingly turned toward decolonial perspectives, yet much of this work continues to operate within conceptual frameworks that separate theory from practice and aesthetics from embodied experience. This paper addresses this limitation by revisiting the Nāṭyaśāstra as an Indic framework for understanding methods in dance education.
Contemporary dance scholarship has increasingly turned toward decolonial perspectives, yet much of this work continues to operate within conceptual frameworks that separate theory from practice and aesthetics from embodied experience. This paper addresses this limitation by revisiting the Nāṭyaśāstra as an Indic framework for understanding methods in dance education.
Learning the 108 karaṇas, codified dance units from the ancient text Nāṭyaśāstra, offers new possibilities for embodied training, creative exploration, and pedagogical renewal in Bharatanatyam. As a Bharatanatyam dancer, I engage these possibilities through a practice-as-research (PaR) lens. Structured training in karaṇas revealed significant pedagogical potential: enhancing kinaesthetic alignment, enabling both expressive and abstract choreography, and fostering aesthetic integrity.
Antariksh Pasricha is a PhD scholar at NIAS working with Dr. Deepti Navaratna. His work brings together music, technology, and the study of the human brain. With academic training in Computer Science and Hindustani music, and over five years of experience as a music educator, he brings both analytical and creative perspectives to his research. His primary interest in music perception developed through his experience of teaching, where he became fascinated by how the same piece of music could be perceived, interpreted, and experienced so differently by different listeners and students. This curiosity gradually led him to explore the role of individual experience, learning, and culture in shaping musical perception.
A trained vocalist and guitarist, he often experiments with bringing the melodic phrasing and nuances of Indian ragas to the guitar- an experience that has further deepened his interest in how musical ideas are perceived and expressed across different musical contexts. His doctoral research focuses on the perception of continuous and microtonal pitch in Indian classical music, particularly phenomena such as shruti, meend, and other forms of pitch movement. He is interested in combining behavioural, computational, and neuroscientific approaches to understand how the brain, musical experience, and cultural learning shape our perception of music.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antariksh-pasricha/
Email: antariksh.pasricha@nias.res.in, antariksh.pasricha@gmail.com
Anirban Ghosh is a PhD Scholar in the School of Humanities at NIAS under the program of Heritage Science and Society with the supervision of Dr. S. Udayakumar.
He is a young archaeologist and an early-career researcher who is enthusiastic about the past for a better future.
He has academic training in Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Archaeology, along with a UGC-NET JRF in Archaeology; his research interests include ethnoarchaeology, traditional performance traditions, archaeology, heritage, and the study of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. He has field experience with the Archaeological Survey of India, including archaeological excavation, documentation, and heritage-related work, and has published research on Indian theatre, dramaturgy, and cultural history.
Prof. Balasubramanian Ananthanarayan (BA) of the Centre for High Energy Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore is a student of the 1980-85 batch in Chemical Engineering (roll no. 20007). He is highly accomplished researcher, teacher, educator working in the field of elementary particle physics and field theory, after obtaining his MS and PH. D. from the University of Delaware, USA. He is also well known for his commitment to the betterment of the cause of science and for his engagement with many issues, including, e.g., his long service on the Board of the Kum.L. A. Meera Memorial Trust (established in memory of Ms. L. A. Meera, IITM alumna). BA is well-known for a large number of original and important contributions in his field, including his landmark prediction of the top-quark mass in 1991 as part of his Ph. D. work, his work as a post-doctoral fellow on collider physics and in dispersion relation theory. As a faculty member at IISc, he established several fields in the quantum field theory and particle physics, which are too numerous to list. His impressive list of publications speaks for itself as does his citation record. As a teacher he has excelled during his nearly 29 years of service and has graduated 12 students with their Ph. D.s which is the present record at the Centre for High Energy Physics. BA was also instrumental during his nearly 10 years as the Chair of CHEP in turning the Centre into the most sought-after destination for a career in the field, thereby offering rare leadership in addition to his scholarship, teaching and research. BA has also carried out tremendous service to the world of physics and particularly in India through his editorial work with Springer.