Renny Thomas, alumnus of the UCSIA Summer School cohort of 2011 and participant in the 2014 alumni meeting “Religion and Culture in a Globalized World: Questioning our Research Frames”, recently shared news of a major scholarly publication.
The edited volume Decolonial Keywords: South Asian Thoughts and Attitudes, co-edited by Renny Thomas and Sasanka Perera, was published in December by Tulika Books in India and South Asia, with Columbia University Press distributing the book internationally. The volume brings together a wide range of critical concepts and debates that shape decolonial thinking from South Asian perspectives. By foregrounding intellectual traditions rooted in the region, the book makes a significant contribution to global discussions on decoloniality, knowledge production, and epistemic justice.
Renny Thomas is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Bhopal, India. In 2024–25, he served as the Taki Visiting Global Professor at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University, USA. Before joining IISER, he taught Sociology at the University of Delhi between 2015 and 2021. His academic career also includes international fellowships and visiting positions, notably as a Charles Wallace Fellow in Social Anthropology at Queen’s University Belfast (2017–18) and as a Visiting Fellow at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany (2022–23).
In addition to the present volume, Renny is the author of Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment (2021) and co-editor of Mapping Scientific Method: Disciplinary Narrations (2022), further reflecting his long-standing engagement with questions at the intersection of knowledge, culture, and society.
Reflecting on his time at UCSIA, Renny recalls the UCSIA Summer School as a formative intellectual space, marked by rich exchanges with fellow participants and faculty. He took part in the 2011 Summer School and in the selective 2014 alumni meeting, which brought together fourteen former participants for focused interdisciplinary dialogue.
The UCSIA Summer School warmly congratulates Renny Thomas on this publication and his continued academic achievements and looks forward to future encounters and collaborations.