Established in 1981, the University of Toronto’s Centre for South Asian Studies (CSAS) fosters academic research, teaching and public discussion on South Asia in an effort to address global questions. A constitutive unit of the Asian Institute at the Munk School for Global Affairs and Public Policy, the Centre is supported by the Faculty of Arts & Science with core faculty across the University of Toronto’s three campuses. It is a key international hub for critical conversations across the humanities and social sciences on South Asian worlds, both inside and outside the subcontinent.
CSAS conversations also address incarnations of “South Asia” and its regions as objects of knowledge, from mythic to governmental to geopolitical. The Centre’s programming thus reflects an interface of approaches that has distinguished research on South Asia in recent years, incorporating deep specialist and empirical knowledge, transnational methods, gendered readings and cutting-edge theoretical investigation. Delving into local contexts, CSAS programming addresses questions as wide-ranging as the workings of postcolonial democracy, law, and activism; histories and contemporary configurations of the sacred and secular; political economy and cultures of capitalism; media, technology, and the public sphere; the material and imaginative terrains of literary and visual cultures; and the present life of ancient civilizations.