Suryamayi speaking at The Bridge, Auroville’s 50th anniversary research conference.Recently, Suryamayi Clarence-Smith, who was born and brought up in Auroville, completed a Ph.D in International Development in the University of Sussex, the world-ranking institution in the field. Her thesis, Towards a Spiritualised Society: Auroville, An Experiment in Prefigurative Utopianism, examines Auroville as a site of contemporary utopian practice.
Auroville Today: Why did you choose Auroville for your thesis?
This takes me back to my undergraduate studies at UC Berkeley. My thesis mentor convinced me to focus on Auroville. I wasn’t planning to, and my first reaction was that it might be academically illegitimate for me to study my own community. I also thought that Auroville might be too small and fringe an experiment to be considered relevant to research. He told me then it could be a Ph.D! I did my undergraduate thesis on Auroville, but felt I was just scratching the surface. I had gone...
>> More
>> More