The Centre for Studies in History of society and Culture in Bengal started its journey in December 2017 with an objective to make a systematic and scholarly study of colonial and contemporary social, political and cultural issues from an inter-disciplinary perspective. The Centre is dedicated in developing new approaches to study the social issues and notion of culture in Bengal. It formulates ideas, undertakes empirical studies, theorizes and disseminates knowledge through research and publications in vernacular and English language. The primary focus however is on the local history of Asansol and its urban development. It is an auxiliary part of the Department of history, Kazi Nazrul University, Asansol. It is working under the coordinatorship of Prof. Amitava Chatterjee Head Department of History with the support of all other faculties of the department.
The vision of the Centre is to develop itself as a premier institution of excellence in research and outreach programme on various social and cultural issues related to the broad themes of Bengal. It also disperses interests on different macro and micro Historical issues that will involve historical researches based on recent theoretical and empirical understanding.
The mission of the centre is to create awareness and generates opinion on issues related to the themes of research activities undertaken by it. It also plans to establish a digitized archive of the records and documents on the local history of the urban development of Asansol, which will be the official archive for the future researchers on local history of Asansol.
To begin with the centre started working on the history of urban development of Asansol which is recognized as industrial and coal hub of West Bengal. Two Mphil thesis has been successfully awarded on various aspects of coal industry in WestBengl. Moreover it is also trying to explore the history of Anglo Indian community of Asansol which has a rich cultural heritage of its own. As a part of this research Prof. Amitava Chatterjee Head, Department of History, Kazi Nazrul University and the coordinator of this centre presented a paper on Anglo Indian community of Asansol in an international conference held in IIT Chennai in August 2nd 2018. Another paper of Prof. Chatterjee has been accepted for presentation for the upcoming Anglo Indian Studies conference to be held on 21.12.18 in the Presidency University, Kolkata.
The function of the Centre is to organize seminars, conferences, symposia, colloquium and special lectures. The Centre is planning to invite distinguished academicians and scholars from different specialization on History for the above mentioned purposes with an objective to provide an academic platform for critical and thoughtful understanding among the student, scholars and professionals which will eventually contribute to the emergence of a unique and distinctive category of minds in the academic fraternity. Recently a lecture was delivered by Dr. Kaushiki Dasgupta (Associate Professor, Diamond Harbour Women University). The centre has planned to organize lectures by Prof Geraldine Forbes, Prof. Robyn Andrews, in near future.
The Centre is planning to seek financial assistance from premier governmental academic and administrative offices like, Department of Higher Education, Government of West Bengal, Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi, Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi, etc.
