Somaiya School of Civilisation

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Building a diverse, global community of change-makers to preserve, study, and advance the critical study of civilisations.

Somaiya School of Civilisation Studies

Where History Breathes and Ideas Take Flight

To study civilisation is to step into the pulse of human experience and to trace the arc of time where empires rose and fell, where ideas traversed oceans, and where cultures met in moments of tension, trade, and transformation. At the Somaiya School of Civilisation Studies, we invite you to venture on this extraordinary intellectual voyage, one that moves beyond conventional historical inquiry to ask subterranean, more profound questions: What makes a civilisation endure? How do traditions evolve without losing their essence?

Ours is not a place of passive learning but of active discovery, a space where knowledge is questioned, reimagined and reshaped to make sense of both the past and the present. Through a rigorous interdisciplinary approach, we weave together history, philosophy, anthropology, literature, law and technology among many more to offer a nuanced understanding of civilisation as a living, breathing phenomenon rather than a relic of the past.

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Dr. G.N. Devy

Director and Dean

Ganesh N. Devy (1 August 1950- ) is a thinker, cultural activist and an institution builder best known for the People’s Linguistic Survey of India and the Adivasi Academy created by him. He writes in three languages—Marathi, Gujarati and English. His first full length book in English After Amnesia (1992) was hailed immediately upon its publication as a classic in literary theory.

Since its publication, he has written and edited close to ninety influential books in areas as diverse as Literary Criticism, Anthropology, Education, Linguistics and Philosophy. G. N. Devy was educated at Shivaji University, Kolhapur and the University of Leeds, UK. Among his many academic assignments, he held fellowships at Leeds University and Yale University and has been THB Symons Fellow (1991–92) and Jawaharlal Nehru Fellow (1994–96).

He was a Professor of English at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda from 1980 to 96. In 1996, he gave up his academic career in order to initiate work with the Denotified and Nomadic Tribes (DNT) and Adivasis. During this work, he created the Bhasha Research and Publication Centre at Baroda, the Adivasis Academy at Tejgadh, the DNT-Rights Action Group and several other initiatives. Later he initiated the largest-ever survey of languages in history, carried out with the help of nearly 3000 volunteers and published in 50 multilingual volumes. Devy has continued to combine his academic work with his work for the marginalised communities and cultures. After creating the Adivasi Academy, Devy worked as Professor of Humanities at the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information Technology (2003-2014), Gandhinagar, Honorary Professor at the Centre for Multidisciplinary Development Research, Dharwad( 2015-18), OS Chair Professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences—TIFR, Bangalore (2022-23) and is currently Professor of Eminence and Director-Somaiya School of Civilisation Studies and Dean-Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Civilisation is an ongoing story of all human societies