Prof. Rajesh Kumar (Head)
Welcome to the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences! This Department is one of the constitutive units of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras at Chennai. We are proud of our inter and intra disciplinary diversity. As an academic unit, we come from a diverse range of disciplinary training.
The Department of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) is one of the oldest departments at IIT Madras. Offering both Master’s and Doctoral programmes, as well as electives for B.Tech and M.Tech students, the department boasts a well-balanced student-teacher ratio and comprises faculty from a wide range of related fields.
Aysha Viswamohan
Professor
Dr Joe Thomas Karackattu, Associate Professor, has been awarded the ‘Srimathi Marti Annapurna Gurunath Award for Excellence in Teaching’ 2024 (in the pic: Dr. V. Sumantran, Chairman of the Board of Directors of InterGlobe Aviation Ltd. (IndiGo Airlines) and Prof V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras).
Siddharth Sareen is Professor of Energy and Environment in the Department of Media and Social Sciences at the University of Stavanger in Norway.He also holds a position as Professor II within the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation at the University of Bergen.
Agnihotri, R.K. and Kumar, Rajesh (2022). Language, Mind, and Society. Chennai/Delhi: Orient Blackswan (This was made possible with support from Sir Ratan Tata Trust and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai).
Sreenath, V.S. Sanskrit Poetics in the Postcolonial Space: Beyond the Canon. Bloomsbury, 2024.
Women in Contemporary Indian Films & Media (Taylor & Francis, 2025), edited by Aysha Viswamohan
Kumar, R. (2023). Hindi Vakya Sanrachna me Nakaratmak Shabd (Negation Words in Hindi Clause Structure), New Delhi: LG Publishers. (Translation with Rajani Dwivedi, Vidya Bhawan Society, Udaipur)
Parui, Avishek. Culture and the Literary: Matter, Metaphor, Memory. Rowman & Littlefield, London, 2022
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Room No.: HSB 333
Indian Institute of Technology Madras
Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
PIN Code: 600036
Tel-Phone: +91 44 2257 4500
Email: hsoffice[at]iitm[.]ac[.]in
Welcome to the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences! This Department is one of the constitutive units of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras at Chennai. We are proud of our inter and intra disciplinary diversity. As an academic unit, we come from a diverse range of disciplinary training. We work on wide range of courses in our teaching. We supervise scholars and engage with colleagues from equally wide or wider range of disciplines. We work and focus on scientific temper in our work. We feel enriched to have a group of young and motivated students who believe that their understanding must help them build their capacity. We work on building scholastic achievements, developing cognitive flexibility, and practicing social tolerance. The Department offers 2-year M.A. programs in Development Studies, Economics, and English Studies besides a robust PhD program and a huge basket of elective courses drawn from various domains of humanities and social sciences. Our elective courses are open to students from all Department of the Institute. These courses are open to our MA students as well. Our students have options to credit open electives courses from other Departments too.