ICAS:MP Centre of Advanced Studies
The University of Würzburg's Centre for Modern India Studies, IPS India Forum and the Chair of International Relations and European Studies are part of ICAS:MP Centre of Advanced Studies which has been established in New Delhi. The first ICAS:MP planning meetings and plenary session took place in October 2015 in Delhi with all members of the India Forum taking part. An official Memorandum of Understanding between the Indian and the German side was signed in 2016.
The M.S. Merian – R. Tagore International Centre of Advanced Studies ‘Metamorphoses of the Political’ (ICAS:MP) is an Indo-German research collaboration of six Indian and German institutions funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). ICAS:MP combines the benefits of an open, interdisciplinary forum for intellectual exchange with the advantages of a cutting-edge research centre.
Located in New Delhi, ICAS:MP critically intervenes in global debates in the social sciences and humanities. Bringing together more than 70 scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and through its innovative modular and network structure, ICAS:MP generates sustainable research cooperation among leading social science and humanities scholars from India, Germany and other countries who investigate similar research problems rather than necessarily the same region.
Scholarly exchange and joint exploration within ICAS:MP are defined by a shared interest in examining the shifting boundaries, historically contingent content, and intellectual lineages of the twentieth-century ‘political’. It is thus not another initiative to strengthen ‘Area Studies’, but rather serves as a centre of advanced international research.
Research Themes
Through its innovative transnational structure, ICAS:MP aims to foster sustainable research cooperation among leading humanities and social science scholars from Germany, India and other countries who investigate similar research problems not necessarily confined to the same region. Scholarly exchange and joint exploration within ICAS:MP are defined by a shared interest in examining the shifting boundaries, historically contingent contents, and intellectual lineages of the twentieth century ‘political’. By working comparatively, ICAS:MP highlights the overlapping yet distinctive, trajectories of political processes that have unfolded over the globe.
These questions about the shifting nature of the ‘political’ have been addressed through sustained empirical focus since the inception of the centre in 2015. In our current phase (July 2024-June 2027), the ICAS:MP consortium will investigate the following topics:
- Working Group ‘Theory from the South’
- Thematic Consolidation Group ‘Constructing Alternative Pasts: (New) Sources and Methods’
- Thematic Consolidation Group ‘The Challenge of Gender’
- Thematic Consolidation Group ‘Normative Conflicts and Transformations’: Focus Urban Futures
In the main phase of the project (July 2018-June 2024) ICAS:MP’s research revolved around seven paradigmatic arenas (Thematic Modules) contestation over delimiting the political has been particularly intense:
ICAS:MP and the Chair of International Relations and European Studies
The Würzburg Centre for Modern India Studies, IPS India Forum and the Chair of International Relations and European Studies are – together with our partners in India – mainly involved in the Thematic Module 5 “The Challenge of Gender”, encompassing aspects such as theoretical and international relations perspectives on gender equality in Indian polity, politics and foreign relations, gender perfomativity in ritual, literature and media, and the effect of educational programmes with the aim of empowering women and reducing gender inequalities.
Together with colleagues from IPS, the University of Würzburg and other universities, Dr. Philipp Gieg as well as former staff members have organized conferences and workshops and have published edited volumes in the framework of ICAS:MP. Dr. Philipp Gieg is also member of the Module Committee.
More Information
You'll find more information about ICAS:MP on the website of the centre:
Die Aktivitäten werden durch den Deutschen Akademischen Austauschdienst (DAAD)
aus Mitteln des Bundesministeriums für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) gefördert.
