Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta: Seminars and Lectures

CSSSC welcomes you to staff seminar by Dr Trina Nileena Banerjee on 21st May 2026, 3PM at our main campus in Patuli.

All are welcome.

Title: A Hungry Bengal: Chittaprosad, Nabanna and the Idea of a ‘People’s Art’

Venue: Seminar Room 2, CSSSC Main Campus (Baishnabghata-Patuli)

Abstract: A sense of immediacy and urgency characterises Chittaprosad’s drawings from the famine of 1943-1944 in Bengal. In Hungry Bengal (1943), the printed version of Chittaprosad’s collection of paintings and notes from his November 1943 journeys through Midnapore, we get a sense of an artist running against time to capture what he can of the depth and magnitude of the misery he has witnessed. In this sense, Chittaprosad’s paintings from this era are visual reportage produced in print, an urgent recording of immediate reality, meant for a wide array of readers and spectators, who were kept oblivious of the harsh reality and extent of the ongoing famine by the mainstream media. This essay examines the relationship of Chittaprosad’s Hungry Bengal with the performance of the Indian People’s Theatre Association’s landmark production Nabanna (1944) a year later. I aim to unravel the interface between the visual and the performative in the work of bearing witness, the implications of reporting through art on an ongoing crisis of unprecedented proportions, the aesthetic temporalities it unleashes in contemporary print cultures and in drama, how the ‘people’ are imagined in such a project and what it makes of the artist when the urgency has passed.

CSSSC invites applications to the multidisciplinary Research Training Programme (RTP) 2026-27 (a paid course launched in 2024). The programme is aimed at students who are looking to read more in preparation for a PhD, have a general inquisitiveness about debates across the social sciences and humanities, and wish for a firmer grounding in the concepts, theories, and methodologies of different disciplines. Please see below for further details of the programme and application process: https://www.cssscal.org/academic_programmes.php

THE CENTRE FOR STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCES, CALCUTTA
presents

AI and its Ethics

Speaker
Nikhil Moro
Associate Professor, A.Q. Miller School of Media and Communication,
Kansas State University, USA

Wednesday, 22 April 2026, 3PM
Seminar Room 2, CSSSC, Main Campus (Baishnabghata-Patuli)
All are welcome

Excited to host the Kolkata book launch of The Secret Master by Sumana Ramanan at the Jadunath Bhavan Museum and Resource Centre! The programme features an introduction by historian Prachi Deshpande, a presentation by the author and and an interview with vocalist and academic Ranjani Ramachandran. 📍 10 Lake Terrace, Kolkata 700 029 🗓️ Tuesday, March 17 | 5:00 pm

Happening this Thursday at JBMRC

This year's R C Dutt shall be delivered by Prof. Sonia Bhalotra, Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick. She is an extremely accomplished researcher on various aspects of Development. The dates are 10th and 11th of February, 2026 (Tuesday and Wednesday) at 3 pm on both days

Doctoral Scholars Seminar on 'Researching Communities' is now on at CSSSC! This is the 2nd year of the conference and brings to focus the work of students all over the country.

Postdoctoral positions open at CSSSC.

www.cssscal.org