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SYLLABUS

OF THE

MA DEGREE (CSS) COURSE

IN

ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

(2009 ADMISSIONS)

1

CORE PAPERS

SEMESTER – I

Course Title: ENG 511―CHAUCER AND THE ELIZABETHAN AGECredits: ThreeInstructors: Dr. Maya Dutt

This core course begins with the Age of Chaucer and covers the period up to 1600. It foregrounds the main political and social tendencies of the times—a medieval world with the leaven of the Renaissance already at work.

The Age of Chaucer is followed by the dawn of the Renaissance in England, sparked off by Caxton and his printing press and the opening up of a new era of knowledge with the publication of the masterpieces of literature. The three genres—Prose, Poetry and Drama will be examined critically. Selected works of some of the writers of this period will be considered for detailed study, while the other writers will be dealt with through seminar and term paper presentations.

Texts Prescribed for Detailed Study

Poetry:

John Donne: The Good Morrow; The Canonization. Andrew Marvel: To His Coy Mistress

Prose:

Francis Bacon: Of Love; Of Nobility; Of Marriage and Single Life; Of Studies; Of Death. (5 Essays)

Drama:

Christopher Marlowe: Edward II

Texts Prescribed for Non-Detailed Study

Poetry:

Geoffrey Chaucer: The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales Edmund Spenser: ProthalamionBallads: Sir Patrick Spens; Chevy ChaseSir Thomas Wyatt The lover for shamefastness hideth his desire within

his faithful heart ; Agianst his tongue that failed to utter his suits; The lover describeth his being stricken with the sight of his love; The lover prayeth his offered heart to be received.

Earl of Surrey Description of Spring; Complaint of a lover rebuked; Complaint of the lover disdained; Description and Praise of his love Geraldine

Prose:

Sir Philip Sidney: An Apologie for Poetrie

Drama:

Thomas Kyd: The Spanish Tragedy John Webster: The Duchess of Malfi.

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Course Title: ENG 512―SHAKESPEARE

Credits : Four

Instructor: Dr. Evangeline Shanti Roy

This course is designed as a four–credit programme for providing a comprehensive

understanding of Shakespeare’s oeuvre. Using the prescribed texts as focus, students

will be expected to gain an understanding of the different phases of Shakespeare’s

literary career ― the comedies, the tragedies, the histories and the last plays, as well as

the sonnets.

Various general aspects of Shakespeare studies– Shakespeare’s England, his

life, his sources, Shakespeare’s theatre, audience; the textual / editing problems in

Shakespeare, the development of Shakespearean criticism ―will also be examined.


Twelfth Night

Hamlet


Henry IV – Part 1

The Tempest

Sonnets (ten): 1, 18, 19, 30, 33, 55, 57, 105, 130, 143.

3

Course Title: ENG 513―RESTORATION AND THE AGE OF REASON

Credits: Three

Instructors: Dr B. S. Jamuna, Dr B. Hariharan

The course aims to introduce the development of English literature, broadly, during

the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The life and works of John Milton; the impact

of the Restoration on literature; the literary output of the Augustan era; the rise of Prose

as the major genre of the period ― Jonathan Swift; Addison, Steele and the periodical

essay; the characteristics of the literature of Neoclassicism in general; the rise of the

Novel form in English; the growth of dramatic forms like Restoration Comedy and

Comedy of Manners; the emergence of Pre- Romanticism in literary creation- all these

constitute the content of the course.


Poetry:

John Milton Paradise Lost Book IX

John Dryden Mac Flecknoe

William Blake Lamb; Tiger

Prose:

Samuel Johnson Preface to Shakespeare.

Drama:

Richard Sheridan The School For Scandal


Poetry:

Alexander Pope The Rape of the Lock

Thomas Gray Elegy Written in a Country

Churchyard

Robert Burns To a Mouse; A Red, Red, Rose

Drama:

Oliver Goldsmith She Stoops to Conquer

Fiction:

Henry Fielding Tom Jones

Laurence Sterne Tristram Shandy

4

Course title: ENG 514―THE ROMANTIC AGE

Credits: Two

Instructors: Dr. Jameela Begum A.

This course aims to introduce students to the Romantic revival in British Literature

subsequent to the French Revolution. A keener awareness of the individual self and the

presence of nature begins to be reflected in the writings of major poets, essayists and

novelists of the period. The different phases of romanticism, and the different concerns

and structural strategies of select writers will be analyzed against the context of literary

and philosophical theories of the self and consciousness, time and change.


Poetry:

Wordsworth Ode on the Intimations of Immortality

Coleridge Kubla Khan

Shelley Ode to the West Wind

Keats Ode to Autumn

Prose:

Lamb Dream Children

Oxford in the Vacation


Fiction:

Walter Scott Kenilworth

Jane Austen Emma

Mary Shelley Frankenstein

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SEMESTER – II

Course Title: ENG 521―THE VICTORIAN PERIOD

Credits: Two


This course will highlight the change of mood and temperament in the Victorian Era. The

conflict between science and religion, precipitated by the publication of Darwin’s Origin

of the Species, led to a spiritual crisis that is reflected in the writing of the time. At the

same time, the political stability and imperial power led to an optimistic complacency.

The works of the major writers of the period, their technical innovations, as well as their

contribution to shaping the thought of their age, the changing literary trends that led to

the rise of modernism, will all be examined in detail.


Poetry:

Alfred Tennyson The Lotos-Eaters

Robert Browning One Word More

Matthew Arnold Dover Beach

Gerard Manley Hopkins The Windhover


Poetry:

Dante Gabriel Rossetti The Blessed Damozel

Drama:

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Fiction:

Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre

Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights

Charles Dickens Great Expectations

George Eliot The Mill on the Floss

Thomas Hardy Tess of the D’Urbervilles

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Course Title: ENG 522―TWENTIETH CENTURY BRITISH LITERATURE: I

Credits: Four

Instructors: Dr. Maya Dutt, Dr. Meena T. Pillai

This paper deals with the development of British literature in the early decades of

the twentieth century. In poetry the influence of French Symbolism on English poets,

Irish nationalism and the poetry of W.B. Yeats, the revolutionary changes effected by

T.S.Eliot and Ezra Pound; the development of Modernist poetry in general; Auden and

the poets of the ‘30s will be examined. In prose and fiction the development of the

modern essay, the new biography; the impact of literary periodicals; the growth of the

modern novel; new concepts and techniques in fiction will all be taken up for study. In

drama, the influence of Ibsen, the new drama, the revival of poetic drama, the Irish

Dramatic Movement will be surveyed.


Poetry

W. B. Yeats Second Coming, Easter 1916

T. S. Eliot The Waste Land

W. H. Auden Lay your Sleeping Head, My Love

Dylan Thomas Fern Hill

Prose:

Virginia Woolf Modern Fiction


Drama:

J. M. Synge Riders to the Sea

Fiction:

James Joyce The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

D. H. Lawrence Sons and Lovers

Virginia Woolf: Mrs.Dalloway

E. M. Forster A Passage to India

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Course Title: ENG 523―AMERICAN LITERATURE: ICredits: Two

Instructors: Dr. Jameela Begum, Dr. Evangeline Shanti Roy

This paper traces the beginnings of American literature in the 19th century. The

foundations of American thought and culture were laid, and the distinct identity of its

literature was forged during this period. Poetry and fiction took roots and flourished in

the new soil. Prominent theorists popularized their ideas through their writing. This

paper takes up for detailed consideration both the creative writing as well as the

philosophical and theoretical writing of the period.


Poetry:

Walt Whitman Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking

Emily Dickinson Poems No.160, 216, 258, 280, 449, 465,

712, 1078

Prose:

Ralph Waldo Emerson Self Reliance


Poetry:

Walt Whitman When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed

Edgar Allan Poe The Raven; To Helen; Annabel Lee

Fiction:

Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter

Herman Melville Moby Dick

Mark Twain Huckleberry Finn

Henry James Portrait of a Lady

Edgar Allan Poe “The Fall of the House of Usher”

Stephen Crane “The Open Boat”

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Course Title ENG 524―LINGUISTICS

Credits : FourInstructor: Dr. Maya Dutt

This 64-hour course aims to introduce the student to the latest trends in 20th

century linguistic theory, from the beginnings of modern linguistic theory to the characterization of linguistics today. Various schools of thought including Bloomfield’sAmerican Structuralism, Noam Chomsky’s T.G. Grammar among others, will be studied in addition to Singulary and Double-based transformations in T.G. Grammar, and the derivation of sentences.

The course takes in two extensions of linguistic study―Sociolinguistics and Psycholinguistics, as well as aspects of Phonetics. The study of language acquisition and linguistic behaviour and the psychological mechanisms responsible for them, the concepts of society, culture and language, language in its social context, aspects of segmental and suprasegmental phonemes, including stress, rhythm and intonation will be dealt with through term papers, seminar presentations and discussions.

Topics covered through Classroom Lectures: 1. The Nature of Language―Linguistics as the scientific study of language.

2. Human Languages and Systems of Animal Communication.

3. The Properties of Natural Human Languages.

4. The Fallacies of Traditional Grammar.

5. Structuralism—its roots and theoretical formulation.

6. Structural Phonology/Structural Morphology/Structural Syntax―Immediate

Constituent Analysis/The Problems of the Structuralist Paradigm.

7. The Need for Transformational Generative Grammar―Noam Chomsky and his theories.

8. Transformations: (a) Singulary: [Interrogation (Y/N and Wh); Negation; Passivization; Tag Questions]

(b) Double-based (Relativization, Complementation, Adverbialization, Coordination).

Portions of the Syllabus covered through seminar presentations and term papers:1. Sociolinguistics. 2. Psycholinguistics. 3. Phonetics. Suggested Reading:

Ferdinand de Saussure: A Course in General Linguistics.David Crystal: LinguisticsFrank Palmer: GrammarH. A. Gleaso: An Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics.C. F. Hockett: A Course in Modern LinguisticsR. W. Langacker: Language and its Structure.H. B. Allen, ed. Readings in Applied Linguistics.C. C. Fries: The Structure of English.Martin Joos: Readings in Linguistics.John Lyons: Chomsky.Peter Trudgill: Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and SocietyRonald Wardhaugh: An Introduction to Sociolinguistics.R. Titone and M. Danesi: Applied Psycholinguistics: An Introduction to the

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Psychology of Language Learning and Teaching.Balasubramaniam: Phonetics.

SEMESTER – III

Course Title: ENG 531―MODERN LITERARY THEORY: I

Credits: Three

Instructor: Dr. B. Hariharan

The aim of this course is to familiarize the students with the major trends in Anglo-

American literary criticism in the twentieth century. There will be no formal study of

literary history; but students are to have a broad knowledge of the political, social and

literary context of the works they study.

Prescribed Texts (Non-detailed study)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Biographia Literaria (Chapter XVII)

Matthew Arnold The Function of Criticism in our Present Time

T. S. Eliot Tradition and the Individual Talent

I. A. Richards (a) The Two Uses of Language

(b) The Four Kinds of Meaning

Cleanth Brooks The Language of Paradox

Raymond Williams Realism and the Contemporary Novel

10

Course Title: ENG 532―TWENTIETH CENTURY BRITISH LITERATURE: II

Credits: Three

Instructor: Dr. Evangeline Shanti Roy, Dr. Maya Dutt

The second half of the 20th century marks the transition from modernism to

postmodernism. The impact of other movements like feminism and postcolonialism is

also evident. It was a time of social, cultural, political and moral upheaval, a time when

the old order was giving way to the new in every walk of life. The literature of this period

reflects the multitudinous variety of life and thought. A few representative writers from

each genre are chosen for detailed study, while other important writers and movements

are prescribed for general study.


Poetry:

Philip Larkin Next, Please; I Remember, I Remember;

Whitsun Weddings; Toads

Ted Hughes The Jaguar; The Thought-Fox; Hawk Roosting;

Thrushes; Pike; Two Legends; Crow Alights;

Crow’s Last Stand

Seamus Heaney Digging; Blackberry Picking; Personal Helicon;

Bogland; The Tollund Man; Punishment

Drama:

Samuel Beckett Waiting for Godot


Drama:

Harold Pinter The Homecoming

John Osborne Look Back in Anger

Arnold Wesker Chicken Soup with Barley

Fiction:

Kingsley Amis Lucky Jim

Doris Lessing Martha Quest

William Golding Lord of the Flies

Iris Murdoch The Bell

John Fowles The French Lieutenant’s Woman

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Course Title: ENG 533―AMERICAN LITERATURE: IICredits: FourInstructors: Dr. Jameela Begum A, Dr. B. S. Jamuna, Dr. B. hariharan

This course is intended to familiarize the students with the major landmarks in 20 th

century American literature in the genres of poetry, theatre, short fiction and novel,

through the study of authors and texts that are of a representative quality. The students

are given an opportunity to gauge the nature and direction of the artistic energies

released by High Modernism as well as the way in which it shaped expressive forms.

This line of inquiry is pursued through the post-war decades, embracing some varieties

of minority discourse. Embedded in the manner in which the syllabus is structured are

the images of the unaccommodated private self of the individual seeking to make sure of

a world, which is getting increasingly unstable and chaotic.


Poetry

Robert Frost Home Burial

Wallace Stevens Sunday Morning

Sylvia Plath Daddy

Robert Lowell Skunk Hour

Drama:

Eugene O’Neill Long Day’s Journey into Night

Arthur Miller After the Fall


Poetry:

Ezra Pound Hugh Mauberley

Drama:

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Edward Albee Zoo Story

Fiction:

William Faulkner The Sound and the Fury

Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms

Saul Bellow Herzog

John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath

Toni Morrison Beloved

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Course Title ENG 534―INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH

Credits: FourInstructors: Dr. Jameela Begum, Dr. Meena T. Pillai, Dr. B. S. Jamuna This course is meant to provide a useful introduction to the study of the rise and

growth of Indian Literature in English. The course will provide for a detailed reading of

select pieces of poetry and drama in Module 1 and a non-detailed reading of select

novels and non-fiction texts in Module 2. The target is to enable the students to acquire

a historical perspective of the development of this literature.

Texts Prescribed for Detailed Study:

Poetry:Rabindranath Tagore: Gitanjali: Songs 1, 2 & 3

Sri Aurobindo: Satyavan and Savithri (End of Book VI, 41 lines)

Nissim Ezekiel: Night of the Scorpion; Goodbye Party for Miss

Pushpa T. S.

Kamala Das: My Grandmother’s House; Dance of the Eunuchs

A. K. Ramanujan Obituary; Love Poem for a Wife―1

Jayanta Mahapatra: Life Signs.

Imtiaz Dharkar: Purdah―1.

Drama

Girish Karnad: Hayavadana

Texts Prescribed for Non-Detailed Study:

Prose:

A. K. Ramanujan:: ‘Is There an Indian Way of Thinking: An Informal

Essay.’

Partha Chatterjee: ‘The Nationalist Resolution of the Women’s Question’.

Fiction:

Mulk Raj Anand: Untouchable

R. K. Narayan: The Guide

Shashi Deshpande: Small Remedies

Salman Rushdie: Midnight’s Children

Amitav Ghosh The Shadow Lines Kiran Desai: The Inheritance of Loss

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SEMESTER – IV

Course Title: ENG 541―ELEMENTS OF COMPARATIVE AESTHETICS

Credits: Three

Instructors: Dr. Meena T. Pillai, Dr. B. S. Jamuna

The aim of this course is to introduce the students to (i) the origin, growth, definition and

scope of Comparative Literature, (ii) the major concepts/theories and methodology of

Comparative Literature and (iii) Film and Literature in comparative perspective.

The Course comprises three modules:

Module 1 : Origin and historical development of Comparative Literature in the West; its scope of application; various definitions; Comparative Literature in Indian context.

Module 2 : Influence Studies, Reception Studies, Thematology, Translation Studies, Genre Studies, Movement Studies.

Module 3 : Transformation of the literary text into film- Analysis to focus on two case studies: 1. Chemmeen 2. Vidheyan.

Books for reference

S. S. Prawer. Comparative Literary Studies: An Introduction.

(London: Duckworth, 1973).

U. Weisstein. Comparative Literature and Literary Theory.

(Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1973).

Newton P. Stallkneeht & Frenz (eds.) Comparative Literature: Method & Perspective

(Illinois: Southern Illinois UP, 1971).

Susan Bassnett. Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction.

(Oxford: Blackwell, 1993).

Rene Wellek. Discriminations: Further concepts of criticism. (Delhi: Vikas, 1970).

Chandra Mohan (ed.). Aspects of Comparative Literature: Current Approaches.

(Delhi: Indra, 1989).

K .Ayyappa Paniker. Spotlight on Comparative Indian Literature.

(Calcutta: Papyrus, 1992).

Amiya Dev and Sisir Kumar Das (eds.) Comparative Literature: Theory and Practice.

(Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1989).

Swapan Majumdar. Comparative Literature: Indian Dimensions.

(Calcutta: Papyrus, 1987).

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Course Title: ENG 542―MODERN LITERARY THEORY: II

Credits Four

Instructor: Dr. G. S. Jayasree

The course takes 64 hours and is divided into 8 modules. It engages with the recent

developments in the theory of language and cultural analysis. Students are introduced

to the fundamentals of structuralism and post structuralism. They go on to examine the

implications of poststructuralism for cultural history and politics especially the politics of

race and gender. On the basis of their reading of the works of Michel Foucault, Jacques

Derrida, Edward Said and others, students are invited to consider the greatly expanded

notion of textuality to challenge conventional accounts of meaning and the nature of the

text.

Prescribed Texts: (for Non-detailed study)

Ferdinand de Saussure Selections from Course in General Linguistics

Jacques Derrida Structure Sign and Play in the Discourse of the

Human Sciences

Jacques Lacan The Insistence of the Letter of the Consciousness

Elaine Showalter Towards Defining Feminist Poetics.

Wolfgang Iser The Reading Process: A Phenomenological

Approach

Michel Foucault What is an Author?

Edward Said Introduction to Orientalism

Frederic Jameson Post-modernism or the Cultural Logic of Late

Capitalism

15

Course Title ENG 543―NEW LITERATURESCredits ThreeInstructors Dr. Jameela Begum, Dr B. HariharanThis course aims at introducing the students to a variety of writings from Canada, Australia, the Caribbean and Africa while simultaneously exploring and analyzing many of the issues and concerns of these nations today. The similarities and divergences that characterize the evolution of these new literatures will be traced. The different historical contexts, in the evolution towards the establishment of sovereign republics, are specific to each country. Hence these texts for study can be read only in a socio-historical-cultural context. The history of Canadian, African and Australian literatures will be studied. These texts will also be used as the basis for theoretical explorations concerning gender, ethnicity, localization/regionalism, nationalism, multiculturalism, and subaltern and culture studies. The object of the course will be to inculcate in the students an awareness of the diversity of new literatures and an understanding of contemporary concerns related to ethnicity and immigration.

Texts Prescribed for Detailed Study:

Poetry:

Margaret Atwood Notes Towards a Poem that Can Never be Written;

The Animals in that Country.

Claire Harris Translation into Fiction.

(From Canadian Voices. Ed. Shirin Kudchedkar & Jameela Begum)

Judith Wright The Harp and the King.

J. P. Clark Night Rain.

Derek Walcott A Far Cry from Africa.

(From An Anthology of Commonwealth Poetry. Ed. C.D. Narasimhaiah)

Texts Prescribed for Non-detailed Study:Poetry:

A.D. Hope: Australia; Standardization. Bruce Dawe: Life Cycle Wole Soyinka: Agbor Dancer; Telephone ConversationChinua Achebe: Refugee Mother and Child Robert Kroetsch: Birthday: June 26, 1983; I’m Getting Old Now; Stone Hammer Poem.Himani Bannerji: doing time

Drama

George Ryga The Ecstasy of Rita Joe

Wole Soyinka A Dance of the Forests

Fiction

Chinua Achebe Things Fall Apart

Sally Morgan My Place

Margaret Laurence The Stone Angel

V. S. Naipaul The Enigma of Arrival

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ELECTIVES

Course Title: ENG 501―INDIAN FICTION IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Credits: Two


This course aims to familiarize the students to the development of Fiction in

Indian languages other than English in the post-Independence period. The course will

be based on the English translations of select masterpieces from various languages.

Keeping in view the need to relate English studies to the Indian cultural context, the

course will encourage the student (a) to learn the texts from different languages to

understand their distinctive identities as well as their common concerns, (b) to examine

the narrative strategies/techniques/styles employed by writers in a multi-linguistic

context, and (c) to understand the movements which have become decisive in the

evolution of fiction in a pan-Indian perspective.

Prescribed Texts:

Bhishma Sahni Thamas (Tr. by author)

Mahasweta Devi The Breast Giver (tr. by Gayatri Spivak)

M. T. Vasudevan Nair Mist ( Tr. by Premila V.M.)

Manik Bandyopadhyay The Boatman in Padma (Tr. Prof. Hiren

Mukherjee)

O. V .Vijayan Legends of Khasak (Tr. by author, Penguin India)

U. R. Anantamurti Samskara (Tr. A. K. Ramanujan)

Neela Padmanabhan Pallikondapuram (Tr. Dakshinamurthy, CLS

Publication)

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Course Title: ENG 502―DIASPORA WRITING: THEORY & PRACTICE

Credits: Two

Instructor: Dr. Jameela Begum A.

The theory of Diaspora Writing is significant in the context of globalization and

multicultural societies. Languages and cultures are transformed as they come into

contact with other languages and cultures. Immigration/Exile has created new

dimensions of nationhood and narration. Writing from adopted homelands of a ‘lost

world’; has paved the way for a literature that is both heterogeneous and culture specific.

This course will include essays on theorizing Diaspora and select novels of diaspora

writers like Salman Rushdie, M. G. Vassanji and Michael Ondaatje.

Prescribed Texts

Salman Rushdie: Imaginary Homelands

Ashis Gupta: The Extraordinary Composition of the Expatriate Writer Stuart Hall: Culture, Identity and Diaspora

M. G. Vassanji: The Gunny Sack

Michael Ondaatje: Anil’s Ghost

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Course Title: ENG 503―INDIAN WOMAN NOVELISTS IN ENGLISH

Credits: Two


This course will focus on Indian Feminism as it is reflected through select novels.

Women’s writing has expanded its horizons to speak subjectively about Women’s

experiences within cultural, social and political contexts. Addressing women’s issues

and adopting new narrative modes, the writers identified here for study speak with

different voices of different concerns. Together they paint the predicament of the

oppressed woman caught within a patriarchal Indian society.:

Prescribed Texts

Attia Hosain Sunlight on a Broken Column

Shashi Deshpande The Binding Vine

Anita Desai Fire on the Mountain

Shauna Singh Baldwin What the Body Remembers

Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things

Kiran Desai The Inheritance of Loss

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Course Title: ENG 504―NATIVE CANADIAN STUDIES Credits: Two

Instructor: Dr. Maya Dutt

This two-credit elective course on Native Canadian Studies aims at providing a

comprehensive introduction to Native literature in Canada, focusing on the works of

selected poets, prose writers, dramatists and novelists. The socio-political, cultural and

historical background, against which the literature is set, will form part of the course work

that will be dealt with through Seminars and Term papers.

Prescribed Texts:

Poetry:

Traditional Songs: My Breath

Traditional Orature: Fragment of a Song.

Rita Joe: Today’s Learning Child; I Lost My Talk;

Jeannette Armstrong: History Lesson; Stone Age; Mary Old Owl;

Dark Forests.

Daniel David Moses: The Sunbather’s Fear of the Moon;

The Line; Inukshuk

Duke Redbird: I Am Canadian

Prose:

D. D. Moses and T. Goldie. Two Voices.

Duke Redbird. We Are Metis (selections from this essay.)

Harold Cardinal. A Canadian What the Hell’s It’s All About.

Jeannette Armstrong. The Disempowerment of First North

American Native Peoples and

Empowerment through their Writing.

Drama:

Tomson Highway. The Rez Sisters.

Fiction:

Beatrice Culleton. In Search of April Raintree

Basil H. Johnston. Moosemeat and Wild Rice

Reference:

Daniel David Moses and Terry Goldie, eds. An Anthology of Canadian Native Literature in English.

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Course Title: ENG 505 – ENGLISH FOR COMMUNICATION

Credits: Two

Instructors: Dr. Meena T. Pillai, Dr. B.S. Jamuna, Dr. B. Hariharan

Objectives

This two-credit course on English for Communication aims at developing the communicative skills of students. Emphasis will be placed on the use of the language in various contexts of use thus enhancing their ability to deal with real life situations such as facing interviews, participating in group discussions. Communicative competence will be the prime concern of this course.All the units will provide training to develop communicative skills of the learners.

Detailed Syllabus

Language and Communication Skills

Unit I Listening Comprehension – Types of Listening – Global and Specific;

Practice exercises to improve listening comprehension

Unit II Conversation Skills – Formal and informal Use of English;

Interviews; Debates; Group Discussions; Telephone conversation;

Practice Exercises to improve conversational skills.

Unit III Reading Skills – Types of reading – Skimming, Scanning; Vocabulary

building; Synonyms, Antonyms, Homonyms, Homographs, Homophones;

Phrasal Verbs; Idioms and Phrases; Practice exercises to improve reading skill.

Unit IV Written Comprehension – Correspondence: Formal and Informal;

Business Correspondence; Agenda; Minutes; Advertisements; Notices; Reports;

Proposals; CV and Covering Letter

Unit V Common Errors made by Indian users of English

Recommended Reading:Doff, Adrian and Christopher Jones. Language in Use. Upper-Intermediate,

CUP, 1999

Grellet, Francoise. Developing Reading Skills. A Practical Guide to Reading

Comprehension Exercises. Cup, 2003.

Hanock, Mark. English Pronunciation in Use. CUP, 2003.

McCarthy, Michael and Felicity O’Dell. English Vocabulary in Use (Upper-

Intermediate). CUP, 2001.

Taylor, Shirley. Model Business Letters, Emails and Other Documents.

6th Edition. Financial Times Management. UK, 2003.

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Course Title: ENG 506―FUNDAMENTALS OF ELT

Credits: Two

Instructor: Dr. Maya Dutt

This two credit elective course aims to introduce students to the recent trends and

theories in the field of English Language Pedagogy. The development of a conceptual

framework against which different aspects of language learning can be examined, will

help to coordinate theory and practice. This will be followed by an analysis of various

language teaching methods, highlighting their special features, their merits and their

shortcomings. The second half of the course deals with actual classroom procedures to

be followed in teaching the different language skills. The course concludes with an

assessment of various evaluation procedures.

Detailed Syllabus:Part I – Fundamental Concepts and Theories

1. Introduction: Trends in Language Teaching

2. Basic Terms and Concepts

3. Developing a Conceptual Framework

4. Linguistic Theory and Language Teaching

5. The Sociology of Language Teaching and Learning

6. Psychological Approaches to Language and Learning

7. Language Teaching Theories and Teaching Methods

Part II – Classroom Procedures

1. Lesson Planning

2. Encouraging Student Participation

3. Developing Reading Comprehension

4. Teaching of Grammar

5. Teaching Written Expression

6. Teaching Literature

7. Testing and Evaluation

8. Teaching Aids―language lab & computers, OHP, flip charts, flash cards, realia.

Required reading: H. H. Stern: Fundamentals of Language Teaching.

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(OUP)

Course Title: ENG 507―ASIAN CANADIAN LITERATURE

Credits: Two


Canadian society is a multicultural mosaic of people from a variety of nations,

cultures, races and religions. Each group preserves its unique identity even as it blends

with the whole. Asians, who form a significant proportion of the immigrant population, are

part of the ‘visible minority‘among Canadian citizens. Though they come from very

different backgrounds, their Asian identity serves as a unifying factor, and the Asian–

Canadian identity is distinct enough to merit separate study. The struggle of the

immigrants to carve their own space in the adopted country without entirely giving up

their culture and traditions is reflected in their writing.

Asian Canadians come from a variety of countries including India, Sri Lanka,

Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, etc. This

course will examine prominent writers from all areas, highlighting commonalities and

differences. Their shared Asian identity, as well as shared Canadian experiences as

outsiders and expatriates, forms the common base that underlies variant themes,

strategies and techniques.

Prescribed Texts:

Poetry:

Lakshmi Gill Me; Letter to a Prospective Immigrant; Manna

Himani Bannerji Paki Go Home; Wife

Surjeet Kalsey Migratory Birds; Breaking the Silence; Voices of the Dead

Cyril Dabydeen The Forest; Elephants Make Good Stepladders

Fred Wah From “Waiting for Saskatchewan”

(From Canadian Voices. Ed. Shirin Kudchedkar & Jameela Begum)

Michael Ondaatje Light

Drama

Uma Parameswaran Rootless but Green are the Boulevard Trees

Fiction

Joy Kogawa Obasan

M. G. Vassanji No New Land

Cyril Dabydeen “Homecoming” (from Black Jesus and Other Stories)

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Rohinton Mistry “Auspicious Occasion”; “Lend Me Your Light”;

“Swimming Lessons” (from Tales from Firozsha Baag)

Course Title: ENG 508―BRITISH WOMEN NOVELISTS AFTER 1950

Credits: Two


The relationship between gender and genre is an oft-debated issue. The novel is often

regarded as the favorite genre of women writers. Fiction affords a wider canvas for a

panoramic portrayal of human experience. The women novelists of the latter half of the

20th century transcend the narrow domestic sphere that was once condescendingly

considered to be the woman’s domain. Women novelists have proved that they are

second to none in originality, variety or technical innovativeness. Their novels range

from historical fiction and social satire to psychological fiction, fantasy and magic

realism. The feminist movement spurred many to explore the nature of the ‘new

woman’. This course affords a close study of a cross-section of the women novelists of

Britain, representing different approaches to the art of fiction.

Prescribed Texts:

Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso Sea

Doris Lessing The Golden Notebook

Margaret Drabble The Realms of Gold

Iris Murdoch The Sea, The Sea

Anita Brookner Hotel du Lac

A.S. Byatt Possession

Angela Carter Nights at the Circus

Fay Weldon Praxis

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Course Title: ENG 509―POST-WAR BRITISH WOMEN’S POETRY

Credits Two

Instructor Dr. Evangeline Shanti Roy

The powerful impetus of the feminist movement of the latter half of the 20th century led to

a dramatic increase in the number of women who used literature as the medium for

projecting the female perspective. Poetry, which has always been considered the

channel for the deepest thoughts, feelings and emotions, became the chosen genre for a

new, post-war, generation of women to explore the female psyche and to articulate the

female space. While some of them are overtly feminist in their themes and tone, others

affect studied neutrality on feminist concerns, focusing their attention on other issued.

But whatever standpoint they adopt, it cannot be denied that their writing represents a

fresh approach to human experience. The course takes up for detailed study a few

representative poets and poems, setting them firmly against the background of the

social, political and cultural milieu.

Prescribed Texts:

Elizabeth Jennings The Island; Fountain; My Grandmother

In the Night; An Answer to Odd Advice

For a Child Born Dead

Eavan Boland The Black Lace Fan My Mother Gave Me

I Remember; Night Feed

An Irish Childhood in England; The Muse Mother

That the Science of Cartography is Limited

Carol Rumens Rules for Beginners; Geography Lessons

The First Strokes; The Muse of Argument

Carol Ann Duffy Warming Her Pearls; Standing Female Nude

Valentine; Stealing.

Grace Nichols Because She Has Come

Abracadabra; Black Out

Ann Stevenson Making Poetry

The Spirit is too Blunt an Instrument

Talking Sense to my Senses

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Course Title: ENG 5010―CONTEMPORARY INDIAN ENGLISH NOVEL

Credits: Two


This course aims at introducing the student to the field of contemporary Indian

English fiction. Apart from acquiring a comprehensive understanding of the field, the

student is required to study in depth some select authors with special reference to their

representative works prescribed. The over-all attempt is to help the student make an in-

depth study of these authors and works, especially their treatment of themes and their

use of techniques and style.

Prescribed Texts:

Salman Rushdie : Midnight’s Children

Amitav Ghosh : In an Antique Land

Shashi Deshpande : Small Remedies

Rohinton Mistry : Such a Long Journey

Gita Hariharan : The Thousand Faces of Night

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Course Title: ENG 5011―THE ARCTIC LANDSCAPE IN CANADIAN FICTION

Credits Two

Instructor Dr. Jameela Begum A.

This course will explore the depiction of the Arctic Landscape in Canadian fiction. The

idea of the north, its mystery and its alluring fascination both for the explorer and the

writer will form the context for the study of the novels of Rudy Wiebe, John Moss and

Aritha Van Herk. Each of these writers sees the Arctic from their subjective position,

which is rooted in their diverse cultural background. Concepts such as historiography,

geografictione and spatiality will be analyzed with reference to these writers.

Prescribed Texts:

Rudy Wiebe Playing Dead

John Moss Enduring Dreams: An Exploration of Arctic Landscape

Aritha Van Herk Places Far From Ellesmere: A Geografictione

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Course Title ENG 5012―EUROPEAN FICTION

Credits Two

Instructor Dr. Meena T. Pillai

This three–module course aims to introduce the students to the development of the

Novel form in Europe through major Movements like Realism, Naturalism and

Modernism. The course, based on representative fictional texts, will lay special

emphasis on the evolution of strategies, techniques and styles in European fiction.

Prescribed Texts:

Module 1

Flaubert Madame Bovary

Tolstoy Anna Karenina

Dostoevsky Crime and Punishment

Module 2

Kafka The Castle

Thomas Mann Death in Venice

Pasternak Dr .Zhivago

Module 3

Camus The Plague

Hesse Siddhartha

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Course Title ENG 5013―POETICS OF FICTION

Credits : Two

Instructor : Dr. G. S. Jayasree

This course aims (i) to acquaint the students with the leading movements in Western

fiction, (ii) to familiarize them with new fictional tools and techniques, (iii) to sensitize

them to the nuances of fictional languages, and (iv) to introduce them to recent critical

approaches to fiction and theories of fiction. The course comprises two modules: the first

dealing with historical development and techniques and languages, and the second

dealing with current critical approaches.

Module 1

Movements in Western Fiction Realism, Naturalism, Modernism,

Postmodernism

Language and techniques Suggestiveness, Point of View, Irony,

Symbolism, etc.

Module 2: Prescribed Texts:

Critical Approaches

Roland Barthes ‘S/Z’

Mikhail Bakhtin Discourse in the Novel

Linda Hutcheon The “Pastime” of Past time

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Course Title ENG 5014―INTRODUCTION TO GENDER STUDIES

Credits Two


This course is meant for students with little or no formal background in feminist scholarship.

Designed as an introductory course, it explores the theoretical deployment of the category of

gender as it has come to occupy contemporary feminist thought, in a variety of national contexts

and across various historical a periods. In addition to covering the basic histories of feminism as

a historical force, the students would be introduced to the general scope of feminist studies as an

interdisciplinary intellectual project in the academy. The course questions notions of natural

difference in order to explore how such notions are implicated in epistemologies, histories,

broader cultural practices and relations of power. Offering an interdisciplinary explanation of how

the category of gender has come to defy the human subject, this course would be useful to

students of all disciplines.

The course will consist of six units where the following texts would be discussed.

Unit IWomen’s Rights: political and historical roots – Selections from Mary Wollstonecraft,

Vindication of the Rights of Women.

Unit IIEarly twentieth century feminisms – Selections from Simone de Beauvoir, The Second

Sex.

Unit IIILate twentieth century feminisms – Selections from Betty Friedan, The Feminine

Mystique.

Unit IVContemporary feminisms – Meenakshi Thapan, “The Body in the Mirror: Women and

Representation in Contemporary India.”

Unit VIndian feminist thought – Tanika Sarkar, “Nationalist Iconography: The Image of Women

in Nineteenth Century Bengali Literature.”

Unit VIFeminist research methodology – Shulamit Reinharz with Lynn Davidman, Feminist

Methods in Social Research.

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Course Title: ENG 5015 – FEMINIST LITERARY THEORY: INDIA

Credits Two


Questions of power, agency and resistance have become part of any course in modern

Literary Theory offered at the post-graduate level. But they fail to capture the relevance

of these concepts to the lives of women in post-colonial societies like India. If we wish to

challenge and transform structures of power in society, it will be necessary to equip the

students to question and decode the meanings of signs that describe and perpetuate

such structures. Feminist Literary Theory helps us to understand the reasons for the

subordinate status of women and has been widely accepted as the most important step

in processing experience and knowledge into forms useful for framing policy and

conducting political campaigns. Within the academy, it provides the vital connection

between ideas and political movements. In India, a large body of influential work has

been produced in the last two decades and it is hoped to introduce the students to some

of the key concepts of Indian Feminism in this course. In addition to a general

discussion of Indian Feminist Theory, foregrounding questions of gender, identity and

agency, the course will include a detailed study of select works of Gayatri Chakravorty

Spivak, Kumkum Sangari, Uma Chakravarti and Rajeswari Sunder Rajan.

Recommended Reading

Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History. Ed. Kumkum Sangari & Sudesh Vaid

Feminism in India. Ed. Maitrayee Chaudhari

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Course Title: ENG 5016―TRANSLATION STUDIES

Credits Two


This course examines the main theoretical concepts currently discussed in translation

studies and demonstrates how they influence translation practice. By taking a cultural

studies approach, rather than a purely linguistic approach, the course seeks to explore

the impact of translation as a force for change and o trace the ways in which readers in

different cultural context, receive literary texts. In addition to examining translation in

context, the course will look at ways in which texts are manipulated in the process of

transfer across languages and culture. The aim of this course is to introduce the notion

of cultural transfer in relation to literary and cultural texts. Particular attention will be paid

to the notions of influence, translation, reception and power relations. Students are

encouraged to develop their interest in intercultural communication and combine the

study of theoretical models with active translation work.

Recommended Reading

Walter Benjamin The Task of the Translator

Susan Bassnett Translation Studies

Sujit Mukherjee Translation as Discovery

Tejaswini Niranjana Siting Translation

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Course Title: ENG 5017―EDITING

Credits: Two


This course will consist of two modules. The first module will train the students on

practices of text editing. The second module on copyediting is intended to equip the

students in editing copy for publication, dummying, page make–up, graphics and

computerized editing. It will follow the workshop model and train the students in design,

layout, creative combination of types, photographs and other illustrative material; text

and caption writing and modes production.

Prescribed Texts / Suggested Reading:

Judith Butcher: Copy- Editing : The Cambridge Hand book for Editors,

Authors, and Publishers

Nicola Harris Basic Editing: A Practical Course: Exercises

The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors and

Publishers (14th Edition) Chicago Editorial Staff

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Course Title: ENG 5018―LITERATURE AND ECOLOGY

Credits: Two

Instructors: Dr. B. S. Jamuna, Dr. B. Hariharan

The two-credit course on Literature and Ecology aims at providing a comprehensive

introduction to the ways in which the creative imagination has responded to Ecology.

The writers prescribed for study voice the ecological concerns and the need for a

movement from ego consciousness to eco-consciousness.

Units I, II and III will provide the theoretical background to the course and Units IV and V

will discuss specific literary texts.

Texts Prescribed for Study

Unit I: Vandana Shiva. “Women in Nature”. Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Survival in India. Vandana Shiva. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1988. 38 – 54.

Unit II: Madhav Gadgil. “Environmentalism at the Crossroads”. Ecological Journeys: The Science and Politics of Conservation in India. Madhav Gadgil. New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001. 121 – 135.

Unit III: Cheryl Glotfelty “Literary Studies in an age of Environmental Crisis”. The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology. Ed. Cheryll Gotfelty and Harold Fromm. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1996.

Unit IV: Ted Walter. “Spurned Goddess”.John Burnside. “Penitence”.David Constantine. “Endangered Species”.Andrew Waterman. “Evolution”George Kenny. “Sunset on Portage”(“Sunset on Portage” from Our Bit of Truth: An Anthology of Canadian Native Literature. Ed. Agnes Grant. Toronto: Pemmican,1990. All other poems are from Earth Songs: A ResurgenceAnthology of contemporary Eco-poetry. Ed. Peter Abbs. Devon:Greenbooks. 2002.)

Unit V: Farley Mowat. A Whale for the Killing. Baltimore: Penguine. 1972.

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