University of Calcutta

History

Year of Establishment : 1907

History of the department : Founded in 1907, the Department of English, one of the oldest operating departments of all the modern universities in Asia, has retained its eminence for 110 years. The objective of the department is not only to make students think differently, but also to groom them in the way that enables them to connect the classroom with the outer world, the knowledge of literature with real life.

During the Vice-Chancellorship of Sir Asutosh Mookerjee (1906-14) classes in the Post Graduate level started in the Department. In 1944-45 a Chair was instituted in the name of Sir Gooroodas Bannerjee, the University’s first Vice-Chancellor of Indian origin. The first Professor to adorn the Chair was Professor Mohini Mohan Bhattacharya. In 1979 in Professor Bhattacharya’s memory a biannual Lectureship was instituted, which is delivered by an invited distinguished person. During the Headship of Professor Sisir Kumar Das, the M.Phil Programme was started in the late 1980s (effective from 1990). Among luminaries who have taught here in the course of history are: H.M.Percival, Heramba Chandra Moitra, Prafulla Chandra Ghosh, Henry Stephen, Mohini Mohan Bhattacharya, Tarak Nath Sen, R.K. Dasgupta, Humphry House, Sisir Kumar Das, A.G. Stock, Jyoti Bhattacharya and many others. The Department has from time to time played host to several celebrated educationists, authors and cultural personalities as visiting faculty and invited speakers, such as: Stephen Spender, J.M.G Le Clézio, André Beteille, Gayatri Chakravarti Spivak, Arindam Chakrabarti, Elleke Boehmer, Tapan Raychaudhuri, U.R. Ananthamoorthy, David Lean, Bill Ashcroft, Geraldine Forbes,  Mrinal Sen, Alka Saraogi and others..

The Department was a pioneer within the University in the field of starting an academic journal pertaining to the various areas of English literature and language. The Journal of the Department of English, which was previously known as the Bulletin of the Department of English, is published annually with contributions from well-known scholars from India and abroad.

The Department has incorporated newer areas of specialisation as per the needs and interests of the changing world. It concentrates on the students’ strong foundation in Classical Literature and also to make them conversant with the contemporary strands of literary styles and theories. The specialised courses offered by the Department include areas as diverse as American Literature and Indian Writing in English, Postcolonialism and Gender Studies, Modernism and Postmodernism and Language Studies, V. Woolf, T.S. Eliot, Harold Pinter and R.K. Narayan. The Department has a vibrant research programme.

The Department has never ceased to produce students, whose brilliance of merit is reflected not only by the consistent good results of the Department every year, but also from the fact that they have found their careers in various walks of life. It has produced authors, poets, philosophers, journalists, linguists, historians, academicians, administrative heads, cultural personalities and lawyers. The students are also enthusiastic about co-curricular activities and often arrange for cultural events. The success of the students and the Department is constituted on the basis of a healthy and productive teacher-student relationship.

Special award/ recognition from UGC or related statutory body : The Department has the UGC funded Special Assistance Programme (DRS) since 2002. Currently the DRS Programme is in SAP-III, Phase III (2013-2015).

Vision and Mission of the Department : The Department of English Language and Literature, University of Calcutta, follows a specific vision. Along with academic excellence, the Department believes in imparting to the learners a training that would enable them to become responsible, perceptive and functional citizens who will contribute to the well-being of their society and their nation. The present course is thus designed to nurture a critical and historical awareness that can only be attained through a thorough understanding of the texts and concepts included. The curriculum aims to create a balance between texts and textuality, socio-cultural and linguistic theory, language studies and profession-oriented training. It is created with an intention to equip the learners not only with ideas he/she needs to understand the key periods in the history of English Literature, but also the global events and concepts that influence and mould them. Literature and language are intricately intertwined; this course believes that a greater comprehension of language and its development will create a greater depth in perception and appreciation of literature, culture and human progress. Although the aim of this course is to make the learners ready for employment, it will also ensure that any learner who is trained through this course should have the skill to confidently engage in further research in varied disciplines such as literature, language, English Language Teaching (ELT), culture or political studies, to name a few. The newly implemented syllabus has the following mission:

Professional Ethics, Gender, Human Values, Environment and Sustainability into the Curriculum : The course is designed not only to allow access to texts and ideas with further contemporary flavours, but includes in it issues that challenge humanity. The newly introduced texts in particular addresses issued related to environment, mankind in the changing historical perspectives and a world that is quite new in its natural, social and political environment. Along with mission that maintains focus on creative expression and critical analysis that equip learners to adapt to professional worlds of teaching, journalism, management, advertising, cinema, television and fields such as photography and many such, the vision of the course is also to inculcate values that respond to the modern world without sacrificing tradition and a philosophy that teaches human values and respect for issues such as gender, sustainability and the national consciousness. The department, in its curricular and extra-curricular engagements, tries to introduce the learners to a larger arena of professional and principled living. Since the postgraduate course is the highest syllabus bound programme and as the students have already attained graduate degrees, they are challenged to rise to levels of excellence through complementary assessments that give them the opportunity to rise above mediocrity. The postgraduate course looks ahead not only to employability, but to capacity building so as to allow the learners prepare for research-oriented writing as well as to become skilled in human interaction.

Research Ethics : The University of Calcutta, being one of the oldest establishments in the country, has always followed strictest standards in its research programmes. The department follows the global rationale which may be presented through the following ten point configuration

The scholars are encouraged to be original and are strongly dealt with if unfairness of any sort is discovered. The Research Advisory Committees, with the help of the University provided similarity checking facility, assess and evaluate all research work with relentless quality control. All courses on methodology put firm emphasis on the issue of Research Ethics.

Catering to the needs of underperforming students : As in the case of all institutions and departments, the Department of English also comes across students who fail to perform at par with the standards set by the institution. The Department believes in putting emphasis on their care. This is done by mentoring and encouraging the students to identify and allow the teachers to identify weaknesses and thereafter take measures to remedy them. The structured system of remedial classes occasionally gets replaced by one-to-one interactions that are designed to generate an environment of academic confidence and sharing. Since not all learners can successfully identify their issues – which may be academic or psychological – the Department aims to engage the under-performing students in a dialogue that is beneficial to their career progression.

Best Practices of the Department :

Past Issues of the Departmental Journal available online