Indian Network for Memory Studies (INMS)
International Workshop 2021

First International Workshop

The Indian Network for Memory Studies (INMS) is happy to announce that its first International Memory Studies Workshop in Asia was successfully conducted by the Centre for Memory Studies, IIT Madras from April 26-30th, 2021, with 107 registered participants from all over India and abroad. This virtual event spread over five days was rigorous in theory and practice drawing upon discourses on history, gender, identity, medicine, representation, popular culture and technology. The Workshop which received an overwhelming response with more than 150 applications also witnessed keen attendance and interaction in all sessions despite the challenges of these times. The International Memory Studies Workshop also proved to be a promising platform and nodal point which brought together academics and researchers from all across India as well as from University of Warwick and Leeds Beckett university, UK. You can read the full report here.

Official Launch

This productive international workshop is further complemented by the official launch of the Indian Network of Memory Studies (INMS), which took place on June 16th with an exciting panel of memory scholars and practitioners. This event, followed by around 600 participants from across the world, established the foundation of INMS as a network dedicated to coordinating complex engagements with ‘memory’ from different institutes, including cultural studies centres as well as neuroscience laboratories and industry research on AI and related fields. The INMS is the first national network in India and in Asia, and is founded and chaired by Dr. Avishek Parui and Dr. Merin Simi Raj, Assistant Professors at IIT Madras. Addressing the event, Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director of IIT Madras, said, “I wish this effort a speedy success. The network has already built a commendable critical mass which reflects its relevance and reach. Success in this case will be to get the activities going, establish lot of collaborations, conferences, workshops and form a community of people working in this field. For India, memory studies can be very important, for a lot of historical developments are captured only in memories and not on documentation.”