Department of English

The Department of English is one of the most dynamic and vibrant spaces that provides an exciting and exhilarating academic and co-curricular environ to its students. Well trained and dedicated faculty who are committed to research and academic excellence is the hall mark of the English Department. The range of their specialization and research areas is diverse and enables them to provide a balanced and contemporary disciplinary thrust to the classroom lectures and pedagogy. Classroom lectures, film screenings, book discussions, paper writing, creative writing form an integral part of the pedagogy. Eminent academicians, writers, translators, publishers are regularly invited to interact with the students. Hosting of talks, seminars, discussions, and film screenings are held throughout the semester, organized under the auspices of the ELA, the English Literary Association. The ELA is the student face of the Department. The ELA is managed by students with the elected representatives who look after the activities and events of the association. The ELA Annual festival, Pantheon, is a sought-after event in the academic calendar of the Department and the college. Students of the department bring out a bi-annual newsletter named The Carrel in order to give expression to their creative urge.
The department is invested in an creating an inclusive ethos and encouraging the students to be aware of and responsible towards a rich multi-ethnic, multi-cultural environment which makes them morph into responsible global citizens who can inhabit their personal and professional locations with ease and felicity.
The English Honours course exposes students to a wide range of literary texts: beginning with acquiring a strong foundation in classical Indian and Greek literature, students go on to an intensive study of Medieval, Renaissance, Age of Enlightenment, Romantic, Victorian, and Modern literature. The course is not just confined to literature written in English but also includes an array of texts available in English translation; including texts originally written in Greek and Sanskrit to texts written in modern European and Indian languages. Students learn the importance of studying texts from a wide range of cultural and multi-disciplinary perspectives through a variety of exciting Electives such as Diasporic Literature, Graphic novels, Queer Literature, Partition Literature, African Literature, Latin American Literature, Speculative Fiction and Detective Literature etc.
During the course of study, students acquire proficiency in written and oral communication; develop analytical skills and critical thinking, and acquire the ability to debate and develop convincing arguments to support their own point of view. This wide range of acquired skills is transferable and highly valued by employers in nearly every field. After graduating with an Honours degree, students have the option to choose a career in creative and professional writing, editing, journalism, advertising, social media, public relations, copywriting and publishing. Students who acquire proficiency in another language can become translators, while others can go into teaching after doing B.Ed or a language teaching certification course

Activity Report Department of English ELA, 2020

Department of English Activity Report 2022-23

Departmental Activities

Students of English are exposed to a variety of lectures and talks that helps them to be aware of the recent trends in academic and career opportunities. The invited speakers are eminent academicians working in Indian and foreign universities. Some of the recent speakers include Professor B.N. Patnaik, Retd Prof IIT Chennai; Dr. Hephzibah Israel, University of Edinburgh; Professor Sonjoy Dutta-Roy, University of Allahabad; Dr Rimina Mohapatra, Head Academic Publishing Routledge, India, Dr Uma Jayaraman, National University of Singapore, etc. This year The Carrel, had a special emphasis on Queer Literature with interviews from eminent personalities like Queer studies’ theorist Judith Butler and LGBTQ+ activist Sharif Rangnekar.
The ELA hosts regular interactions with creative writers to help students understand the necessary process of writing fiction, poetry and translation. Recently the ELA organized an international creative writing workshop titled ‘A Good Short Story Never Ends’ with Dr. Rijula Das as the guest speaker. Her short story 'Notes from a Passing' won her the Dastaan Award in 2016 and Michael King Writers Centre Residency in Auckland in 2019. The workshop explored the creative process involved and other technical aspects in writing a short story. Another online creative writing workshop was organised with the renowned novelist Shubhangi Swarup as the guest speaker, on ‘Stories Without Sapiens- How to Tell Stories That Don’t Revolve Us’. She won the Tata Litlive award for her debut novel 'Latitudes of Longing' and the Sushila Devi award for women's writing. The workshop covered various aspects of creative story writing focusing on stories without humans. Other eminent writers who have visited the college include William Dalrymple, Patrick French, translators Arunava Sinha, Aruna Chakrabarty etc.
Students are also encouraged to participate in various competitions such as paper presentations, and panel discussions. Recently a competition was organised by the ELA on the topic ‘Gratification Through the Visual: Women and Cinema’. Participants, judges and the audience engaged themselves in a virtual interactive session discussing the politics of the depiction and representation of the female body through cinema and in-depth analysis on the idea of the Male Gaze. Students of various colleges participated.
THE ELA festival Pantheon was organised in virtual mode on 25th of February, 2021. Centered around the theme Goth and Otherness. Kavya Sharma was the judge for the Slam Poetry competition. She holds a masters in Creative Writing from the University of Nottingham, England. She has authored two books till now and apart from that her poems/short fictions have been featured in various anthologies and literary magazines. Sharma has been recognised as the 100 Most Inspiring Authors from India, 2018 by The Indian Awaaz, Author of the Year by NE8X and has also been awarded The Honourable Mention by Delhi Poetry Slam for excellence in poetry in their Free Verse Poetry Contest. She is also the Founder and Editor-in-chief of Verse of Silence, a literary platform which comes out with a creative magazine quarterly and also conducts poetry readings and online competitions across India.

The Carrel: An Annual Magazine of ELA, Department of English, 2022-23