Department of English

1. About the department :  The department of English, Pithubar Girls’ Degree College, Khowang was established in 1989. Since its establishment, the department of English has been trying to propagate humanitarian Values and literature in society. Courses provided by the department currently B.A. in English, English major and Alternative English. The current intake capacity of the department is twelve per year. The department also provides exposure to many co-curricular activities for the students. The department has taken many co-curricular activities among  students including quiz competitions, educational trips, literary  discussions etc.

Course Outcomes

Department of English

Core courses (14 courses)

Course Code: 10100

Course 1: Indian Classical Literature (Core)

Credits Assigned: 6 Credits

Course Objective: The objective of this course is to acquaint the students with the rich cultural heritage of ancient Indian literature, especially Sanskrit Literature. Indian classical literature can claim the rare distinction of attaining the summit of creative excellence and artistic/aesthetic sensibility, especially in Sanskrit in the immortal plays of Kalidasa, the epics The Ramayana and The Mahabharata, Shudraka’s Mrcchakatika, among others.Although Srimanta Sankaradeva of Assam cannot be regarded as ‘classical’ from the purview of temporality, his works are characterised by classical sensibilities and in the context of Assamese literature and culture, his works are held as immortal classics. Therefore, Sankardeva’s inclusion in this course is determined by his works’ timeless appeal and relevance. One of his famous plays Parijata Harana has been included. Expected Course Outcome: After completing this course, the learner shall be in a position to understand and appreciate the rich Indian classical literary tradition including its distinctive aesthetic philosophies. It would provide them with the conceptual resources to make a comparative assessment between the Indian and the Western classical tradition, thereby enabling their knowledge and understanding of the two great ancient literary traditions.

Course Code: 10200

Course 2: European Classical Literature (Core)

Credits Assigned: 6 Credits

Course Objectives: European Classical literature implies the literature of ancient Greece and Rome. The study of ‘ancient Greek literature’ implies a study of literature written in Greek in the pre Christian period, by non-Christians in the first six centuries of the Christian era. Roman literature, written in the Latin language remains an enduring legacy of the culture of ancient Rome. Latin literature drew heavily on the traditions of other cultures, particularly the more mature literary tradition of Greece, and the strong influence of earlier Greek authors are seen. The purpose of this course is to acquaint learners with the great heritage of European classical literature, starting from Homer’s epic The Iliad to the satires of Horace. The importance of this course rests on the fact that English literature is heavily indebted to the classical works of  Greece and Rome. Whether it is tragedy or comedy, satire or criticism, epic or lyric, the influence of classical literature in the works of the English authors is clearly in evidence. Therefore, learners will be acquainted with immortal classics like The Iliad and Metamorphosis, they get to learn about the difference between the Greek classics and the Latin classics, the different genres dabbled in by the classical writers, such as, tragedy, comedy, epic, satire, criticism and so forth. Expected Course Outcome: After the completion of the course, the learners shall be in a position to understand the source of Western literary paradigm – a formation that was responsible for constituting the great tradition of the western canon, and one which govern our critical or comparative touchstone on ‘what good literature ought to be.’

Course Code: 20100

Course 3: Indian Writing In English (Core)

Credits Assigned: 6 Credits

Course Objectives: Indian Writing in English refers to the body of work by writers in India

who write English and whose native language could be one of the numerous languages of India. It is also associated with the works of members of the Indian Diaspora. As a category, this production comes under the broader realm of postcolonial literature- the production from previously colonized countries such as India. Indian English Literature is an honest enterprise to demonstrate the ever rare gems of Indian Writing in English. From being singular and exceptional, rather gradual native flare - up of geniuses, Indian Writing in English has turned out to be a new form of Indian culture and voice in which India converses regularly. Indian Writers - poets, novelists, essayists, and dramatists have been making momentous and considerable contributions to world literature since pre - Independence era, the past few years have witnessed a gigantic prospering and thriving of Indian English Writing in the global market. Indian English Literature has attained an independent status in the realm of world Literature. Wide ranges of themes are dealt within Indian Writing in English. While this literature continues to reflect Indian culture, tradition, social values and even Indian history through the depiction of life in India and Indians living elsewhere, recent Indian English fiction has been trying to give expression to the Indian experience of the modern predicaments. The aim of this course is to introduce learners to Indian Writing in English from the colonial to the postcolonial period. Issues such as identity politics, gendered differences, home, dislocation, language among others shall be underscored with the intention to understand the diversity of Indian culture and tradition across spatiality.

Expected Course Outcome: It is believed that learners, after the culmination of this course,

shall be in a better position to appreciate the diversity of customs and traditions in India, would  be able to map the intellectual trajectory from the pre- to post -independence period, and get the feel of the advancement that Indian writers in English are making, for which they are receiving plaudits, both at home as well as abroad.

Course Code: 20200

Course 4: British Poetry And Drama: 14Th To 17Th Centuries (Core)

Credits Assigned: 6 Credits

Course Objectives: The objective of this course is to acquaint the learners with British poetry and drama from Chaucer to Shakespeare. The texts prescribed relate to the Age of Chaucer, Pre-Elizabethan and Elizabethan periods. Shakespeare figures predominantly in this course, with a tragedy, comedy and two sonnets prescribed. Marlowe’s play encapsulates the spirit of the Renaissance, thereby placing the Elizabethan period in a proper perspective. Expected Course Outcome: After completing this course, the learners would be in a position to determine the influence of the European Renaissance on the works of the Elizabethan authors, including Shakespeare.

Course Code: 30100

Course 5: American Literature (Core)

Credits Assigned: 6 Credits

Course Objectives: The objective of this course is to introduce the learners to American

literature, a field that could be considered as comparatively recent in formulation, when

compared to the literature of Britain and Continental Europe. It is a literature steeped in the

reactionary philosophy of its Puritan forbears, and has a strong individualistic spirit running

through it. The reality or illusion of the Great American Dream, the transcendentalist movement, the history of slavery in the South, the great economic depression etc., forms important contexts to American history and literature, and this course would attempt to highlight these issues as much as possible. All of these would be taken up in this course. Expected Course Outcome: It is hoped that learners would get a feel of American literature

and they will be able to understand the poetics and politics of a literature characterised both by liberal and reactionary ideals.

Course Code: 30200

Course 6: Popular Literature (Core)

Credits Assigned: 6 Credits

Course Objectives: Popular literature includes those writings intended for the masses and those that find favour with large audiences. It can be distinguished from artistic literature in that it is designed primarily to entertain (brittania.com). The objective of this course is to acquaint learners with popular literature, such as crime thriller, graphic fiction, children’s literature and so forth, generally regarded by purists to be ‘low-brow’ and meant for easy mass consumption. However, it would be wrong to assume such a position insofar as the lines of distinction between what is literary and what is popular tends to be blurred.

Expected Course Outcome: After the completion of this course, it is believed that learners

would be in a position to appreciate the presence of a creative space and process that has the potential to affect readers to a degree that high-brow literature cannot achieve due to its propensity to target only a niche audience.

Course Code: 30300

Course 7: British Poetry And Drama: 17Th And 18Th Centuries (Core)

Credits Assigned: 6 Credits

Course Objectives: English literature of the Seventeenth and the Eighteenth century was

dominated by epoch-making political events, such as the Puritan Interregnum and the Restoration. These events were responsible for ushering in changes in the thought processes of poets like Milton and Pope, dramatists like Webster and Behn, and so forth. From the romantic excesses of the Elizabethan literature to a literature marked by restraint and order, the learners would be in a position to experience a whole gamut of feelings that define a period and contradistinguishing it from another. Expected Course Outcome: After the completion of this course, learners will be in a position to understand the ways in which English drama and poetry began to emphasize on the importance of adhering to classical norms and forms.

Course Code: 40100

Course 8: British Literature: 18Th Century (Core)

Credits Assigned: 6 Credits

Course Objectives: Continuing with Eighteenth-century literature, this course offers an array of texts across genres. The eighteenth-century was an age in which new modes of creative  expression were coming to the fore, particular prose narratives of the likes of Swift and Sterne, among others. Irony and satire became important tools to depict society’s ills. The age was also characterised by importance given to gender issues. Congreve’s play bears enough testimony to this fact. Since, this period is also referred to as the Age of Enlightenment; ‘reason’ became the locus from which human’s actions and cognition issued forth. Therefore, a fundamental philosophical shift ushered in, in the wake of the culture of positivism that set in during this period. Expected Course Outcome: After the completion of this course, learners will be in a position to understand the spirit of the age, as well as the literature embodying this spirit.

Course Code: 40200

Course 9: British Romantic Literature (Core)

Credits Assigned: 6 Credits

Course Objectives: The literature of the Romantic period is considered to be the most affective in terms of the ways in which it was able to connect with people across class lines. Product of the revolutionary zeal precipitated by two great revolutions – the French Revolution and the American War of Independence – the highly imaginative, rhetorical, emotive, visionary, metaphysical, epical, sensuous aspects of the works, especially poetry, gave tremendous heft to this literature celebrating Nature in all its beauty, majesty and terror. The Gothic Novel became a dominant genre, which attempted to debunk the structure of rationality by emphasising on the reality of the supernatural. Expected Course Outcome: It is hoped that the learners would be in a position to know and appreciate the values of a literature characterised by emotion, passion, love towards nature, exerting of imagination and so forth in order to create a thing of beauty, which would be a joy forever.

Course Code: 40300

Course 10: British Literature: 19Th Century (Core)

Credits Assigned: 6 Credits

Course Objectives: The nineteenth-century is emblematic of a certain spiritual crisis that had set in due to the powerful impact of scientific ideology. Utilitarian values exhorting personal aggrandisement at the cost of social responsibility became the practice of daily lives of the people. Such an attitude finds ample illustration in the works of the nineteenth-century novelists and poets. This period, especially after 1837 is termed as ‘Victorian’ literature – a term that  evokes notions of propriety, prudishness, censorship, among others, that was in sharp relief against the spirit of the erstwhile Romantic period. The period is also marked by groundbreaking theories propounded by Darwin, Marx and Freud, which impacted the thought processes of the people to such a remarkable extent that its effects are felt up to the present. Therefore, a reading of nineteenth-century English literature provides a fascinating opportunity to immerse oneself into the fraught historical context determined by contradictory, oppositional drives and processes. Expected Course Outcome: The learners will be in a position to understand the philosophical shift that came about due to the crises of faith pertaining to the culture of positivism that manifested its full presence during the Victorian period. It is also hoped that they would be able to understand concepts like utilitarianism, surplus value, Victorian prudishness, survival of the fittest etc., and will be able to analyse it along these lines (in the texts prescribed).

Course Code: 50100

Course 11: Women’S Writing(Core)

Credits Assigned: 6 Credits

Course Objectives: Unarguably the truest fact about human society is domination of women by men. Patriarchy believes in the superiority of man over women in all walks of life.

Therefore, women were denied agency to air their views publicly or in writings. The fact that

women had to resort to male pseudonyms in order to find readership is merely one instance to prove how patriarchal ideology has a stranglehold over the society at large. Since women have been systematically silenced by ‘phallogocentric’ ideology, they find it rather difficult to articulate their views. Privileging women’s writing is a way by means of which the thought, anxieties, fears, desires, emotions of the ‘second sex’ can be addressed. The objective of this course is to introduce learners to women’s writing, and in doing so attempting to underline the manner in which power operates to silence women from articulating their views. Apart from that, the course would also try to situate women’s writing in a space that transcends or upends the male writing tradition through various (subversive) ways. Expected Course Outcome: It is hoped that the learners after completing this course, would be sensitised to gender-related issues, and would be able to see things from the perspective of the Other.

Course Code: 50200

Course 12: British Literature: The Early 20Th Century (Core)

Credits Assigned: 6 Credits

Course Objectives: The early Twentieth-century British literature was characterised by

experimentations on the level of both form and content. The imperialistic World War I impacted the minds of the people across Europe to such an extent that they began to suffer from various neurotic symptoms. Capitalism with its dehumanized processes and practices produced alienated, disenfranchised subjects, triggering a philosophical shift that was encapsulated in symbolism, existentialism, cubism, Dadaism, expressionism, and nihilism. These philosophies found ample space in Modernism in Literature, and this particular course attempts to chart these philosophical trajectories through early twentieth-century texts, particularly novels and poetry. Expected Course Outcome: It is believed that the learners would benefit from this course in terms of getting acquainted with concepts like stream-of-consciousness, Oedipus complex, avant garde, gyre, interior monologue, among many others.

Course Code: 50110

Dse 1: Modern Indian Writing In English Translation

Credits Assigned: 6 Credits

Course Objectives: Salman Rushdie had stirred the hornet’s nest by claiming that Writings in

English from India were infinitely superior to that of ‘vernacular’ literatures existing in all regional Indian languages. This notion was vehemently opposed by many writers and intellectuals, with the likes of Amit Chaudhuri writing sustained critique against Rushdie’s

position. A cursory reading of translated works of Indian writing across regions would prove

how significant has been the contributions of authors writings in the various regional languages. Since, reading these works in the original is most often not possible due to linguistic variations, English translation of immortal works of modern Indian writing would perhaps go a long way in understanding and appreciating the best in regional literature. This course aims to acquaint learners with the works of Indian writers working on regional literature from the north to the south, from the west to the east. Expected Course Outcome: After completing this course, it is expected that learners will be in a position to appreciate the literature of India as it exists in various regional languages. They would be able to understand the political, social and economic factors affecting people across regions and cultures.

 Course Code: 50120

DSE 2: Literature Of The Indian Diaspora

Credits Assigned: 6 Credits

Course Objectives: Generally, diasporic literature deals with alienation, displacement,

existential rootlessness, nostalgia, quest for identity, hybridity and so forth. Indian diaspora

writers have contributed immensely to literature, especially those writing in English. Salman

Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth, Jhumpa Lahiri, Rohintron Mistry, V.S. Naipaul etc. are

luminaries in the field of fiction and their works have earned both critical acclaim and

commercial success. The objective of this course is to introduce learners to literature of the

Indian diaspora keeping in view the issues that haunt the writers who have settled abroad,

despite being Indians in terms of roots and emotional make-up. Expected Course Outcome: After completing this course, it is expected that learners will be in a position to understand the complexity of living as hyphenated identities in a space which is different from that of ‘home’. They will be in a better position to understand the postcolonial condition of identities caught between the quest for a better life abroad and the acknowledgement of the futility surrounding such a rootless mobility.

Course Code: 60100

Course 13: Modern European Drama (Core)

Credits Assigned: 6 Credits

Course Objectives: The twentieth century marked the revival of drama after it was forced to shut down during the Puritan Interregnum. Even though the revival started during the Restoration Period, it subsequently lost ground during the Romantic and the Victorian Period. It was with the onset of the twentieth-century that drama made a magnificent return. It was in Europe, particularly the plays of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, the German playwright Bertolt Brecht and French playwright Samuel Beckett that drama became an important vehicle for representing the political, social, individual, economic conditions the postwar Europe, with all its attendant ills and trauma. This course intends to read the plays by placing the epochal events of the period as the backdrop Expected Course Outcome: It is hoped that the learners after completing this course will be in a comfortable space to know Modern drama with its entire attendant problematic.

COURSE CODE: 60200

COURSE 14: POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURES (CORE)

CREDITS ASSIGNED: 6 CREDITS

Course Objectives: This course introduces postcolonial literature to the learners. The

importance of postcolonial studies in a globalised world in which more than three-quarters of the people living in the world today have had their lives shaped by the experience of

colonialism, cannot be overestimated. The main focus in the course is on literary texts and

literary analysis. The literary works chosen are English language texts from the erstwhile

colonized countries including the countries subsumed under the rubric “the Commonwealth.” In this course we will deploy postcolonial theory to engage critically with texts within a postcolonial framework. We will focus on such issues as language, identity, point of view, displacement, physical and mental colonisation, Decolonisation, nationalism, fundamentalism, globalisation and diaspora, colonial legacy, gender and sexuality, regionalism, ethnicity, genocide, race, and so forth, and we will discuss how such issues are expressed in the literary texts. When taking into account the individual work’s socio-historical context, however, it will become apparent that it may not be relevant to discuss all the issues mentioned in each separate work. Expected Course Outcome: The learners on culmination of the course are expected to be acquainted with both the texts and the contexts of the given period.

Course Code: 60110

Dse 5: Literary Theory

Credits Assigned: 6 Credits

Course Objectives: Literary theory is a field which is presently in great academic demand. It involves reading texts by deploying discourse/s. These discourses have political, social,

economic, gendered, cultural values, and when one reads literature through such discursive

lenses, interpretation of texts tend to be multiple and heterogeneous. The objective of this

course is to acquaint learners with four relevant discourses or theories. These are Marxism,

Feminism, Poststructuralism, and Postcolonial Studies. Expected Course Outcome: By the end of this course, the learners shall be in a position to know some of the significant texts of discourses revolving around class, gender, power, language, race, identity and so forth. They will be able to relate their reading of literature through such theories, which would in turn facilitate their interpretive strategies.

Course Code: 60130

Dse 7: Partition Literature

Credits Assigned: 6 Credits

Course Objectives: The Partition was perhaps the most horrific event of the twentieth century subcontinent’s history. Thousands of innocent people across the divided nation (India and Pakistan) lost their lives, millions lost their homes, and migrations of unimaginable magnitude took place. It is important to understand the backgrounds and reason for the partition, but also to consider its effects on the lives of the people involved. The historical accounts may not be enough; imaginative literature helps fill in the gaps in understanding the emotional impact of these events on people’s lives. So, the objective of this course is to read literature that captures the sense of the times. There will also be film screenings since cinema also helps capture both the horror and the repercussions of these events. Expected Course Outcome: After the culmination of this course, the learners will be in a position to comprehend the magnitude of the tragedy of partition and realise how the trauma associated with it impinges on the victim’s daily lives and activities even in the present. The historical fact transmuted by imagination tends to prove the validity of literature in representing the truth of the human condition. This is what the course will attempt to highlight.

Courses offered by the Department