School of Languages & Linguistics

Raamesh Gowri Raghavan is Director of the INSTUCEN Trust School of Languages and Literature, Mumbai. His literary publications include poems, short stories, haiku and haibun in several magazines and anthologies. He organized “Distilled Images”, a national conference on haikai literature in India, in collaboration with SIES College in 2014.

He is also Editorial member of Retrospect, a Sri Lanka-based peer-reviewed journal of archaeology, anthropology, history, and heritage tourism (Editor-in-Chief Prof. Anura Manatunga). His academic publications span numerical linguistics, bacterial and archaeal microflora of the Lonar crater lake, the ethnoarchaeology of the Bene Israel, ancient board games, the archaeology of ballistic weapons and fortifications, Indo-Roman trade, and Śaiva iconography. He has given talks and conducted workshops (online and offline) on maritime archaeology; archaeopaizology; sustainability of traditional Indian sciences; Vijayanagar studies; epigraphy and manuscriptology; Dravidian linguistics and poetics; evolutionary biology & genetics; and haikai literature at the University of Mumbai’s Centre for Extra Mural Studies, INTACH Bangalore, KJ Somaiya Institute of Dharma Studies, Maritime Mumbai Museum Society, KJ Somaiya College, Sathaye College, Tamil Heritage Trust, Wilson College, INSTUCEN Trust, Mumbai Research Centre of the Asiatic Society of Mumbai, Shri. M. D. Shah Mahila College of Arts & Commerce, and Speaking Archaeologically. He has taught archaeozoology and palaeobotany at the MA in Archaeology of the University of Mumbai.

With the INSTUCEN Trust, he organized the first National Conference on Ancient and Medieval Indian Games “Playing with the Past”, sponsored by the Indian Council of Historical Research (1 & 2 June, 2019). He co-wrote a column in the Marathi weekly Lokprabha on ancient games (2018-19) with Dnyaneshwari Kamath. He has also helped organize the Archaeology of Maharashtra Conferences (2015-2019) as well as Archaeobroma (2017) at the Centre for Extra-Mural Studies, including publishing their Proceedings. Currently, he is coordinating the International Diploma in Buddhist Studies at the India Study Centre (INSTUCEN) Trust, which is now in its second batch.