Ph.D. in Humanities and Social Sciences

The Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree is acknowledged to be the highest university degree that is conferred on a candidate who successfully defends their Ph.D. thesis in front of a panel of experts appointed by the University. Prior to the defense, the candidates are expected to complete one year of course work, publish their work in reputed journals and present their work in conferences. Completion of a thesis, depending on individual performance, typically takes about 4 years.

The Ph.D. program in Humanities and Social Sciences at Mahindra University places primary emphasis on research and is structured to help students develop competence in their fields of specialization. As a doctoral candidate in our program, you will have the opportunity to work closely with our faculty members, who are subject experts in their respective fields (you may want to check faculty profiles on the website). They will serve as mentors, guiding you through your research endeavours, challenging your ideas, and helping you develop a deep understanding of your chosen area of study. Our PhD students are also trained to work on research leading to publications in reputed journals/books.

Specialized areas in which PhD students, if found suitable, would be admitted in Fall 2025 semester starting in August

Indian Ocean History; Economic Anthropology; Political Science; English Language Skills Teaching and Assessment, Technology (Digital and Multimodal) in ESL Education, Intercultural Communication, Materials Development in ELT, Teacher Professional Development, Material Development, Teacher Identity/Cognition, Teaching Approaches, Methods and Strategies, Gender and Disability Studies in Francophone literature, Political Economy, Macro Economics, Labour Economics, Development Economics, Economics of Climate Change, Agricultural Economics, Environmental Economics, Energy Economics, Philosophy of logic; Philosophy of Mind; Philosophy of Language; Consciousness studies; Cognitive Science; Professional Ethics; Environmental Ethics; Indian Philosophy, Sociology of Migration, Citizenship, Governance, Political Ecology and Climate Change, School Education, Educational leadership and Governance, Gender and Educational Leadership, Medieval and Early Modern Indian History, Gender History of Islamic Societies in Early Modern India, Law and Colonialism, History of Emotions

Cognitive Science: Attention, Perception and Memory, Speech Perception, Vision and Cognition, Colour Perception, Role of Vision in Driving Behaviours, Alzheimer’s Disease and Cognitive Aging, Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Linguistics.

Linguistics: Applied Linguistics (Phonetics, Phonology, Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics), Sociolinguistics, Psycholinguistics, Cultural Linguistics, Machine Translation and Computational Linguistics