Curriculum
The MA curriculum includes foundational and advanced courses in History and Philosophy, and the elective courses in Society, Technology and Environment. The MA Programme curricula is based on five principles –
- strong and guided expertise in historical and philosophical explorations
- creative comprehension and articulation skills
- committed community engagement
- academic freedom and periodic audits
- continual assessment and task-based interaction pedagogy

The thematically structured curriculum will enable faculty, students and experts anywhere from Southasia or beyond to grasp, share and articulate the course content. Classical and Other language learning as well as strong fieldwork and community engagement requirements will equip the students with skills to break ideological and epistemic underpinnings in the mainstream humanities and arts curricula in the region.

Language
Contemporary Language: In the first semester, students will take a course in one of the living languages other than their mother tongue. If a student’s mother tongue is Tibeto-Burman, for instance, they will learn an Austro-Asiatic or Indo-European language; if coming from a dominant language group, they will take up a ‘minority’ tongue, preferably an endangered language. Achieving relative proficiency in a language not their own, students will glean first-hand insights into a broader and dynamic socio-linguistic historical context within which historical and philosophical concepts are questioned and the questions are framed.

Classical Language:In the second semester, it will be mandatory for students to acquire proficiency in one of the following ‘classical’ languages in Southasia-defined generally, for example: Pali/Prakrit, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Maithili, Tamil, etc. This will deepen their appreciation of the enduring and echoing knowledge systems within which both urgent and emergent worldviews are debated, contested and resolved.

Fieldwork & Labs
The History and Philosophy Labs will help the SiHP academic community to formulate, test, incubate and extend practical, historically grounded and more meaningful life-changing approaches to action for improving social, technological and environmental landscapes of the region.

This experimentation module brings concrete situations of history and philosophy to the fore thereby helping students to gain practical insights into doing history and philosophy. The nature and aims of the actual experiments are customised to reflect changing interests and priorities of the students and echoing requirements of Southasian populations and communities.

Three weeks in the ‘field’ (i.e. outside campus) will help course participants to learn, engage and formulate Historical/Philosophical questions for the people and communities that are critical, right and just.