Department of English
Established in 1969, the Department of English, University of Calicut, has come to be recognized as a major academic centre for studies in English language and literature in Kerala.
While maintaining the best traditions of English teaching and research in India, the Department has kept itself up to date with the latest developments in literature, linguistics and associated disciplines and has introduced to the postgraduate curriculum new areas of studies in keeping with the changing requirements of the times. A major goal of the Department is a fundamental redefining of the role of English and literary studies in the Indian context, through collaborative and interdisciplinary course contents and pedagogy. With the University of Calicut introducing the Choice Based Credit Semester System at the M.A. level from 2008 onwards, the Department has taken the initiative to revise the entire M.A. programme and restructure it radically. In addition to streamlining content areas and courses of an established nature, a number of new focus areas have been identified and courses introduced in them so as to ensure contemporary academic relevance, interdisciplinarity, and better career prospects for the students.
Over the years the Department has evolved a healthy research profile representing most contemporary areas of significance in literature, language, and related fields. A noteworthy feature of our faculty research endeavours is that most of them are highly interdisciplinary in nature and bring on board some of the most significant theoretical postulations of our times. The major areas of research and supervision of the faculty include Postcolonial Studies, Women’s Writing, Dalit Writing, Gender Studies, Film Studies, Cultural Studies, Performance Studies, Literary and Cultural Theory, Translation Studies, Indian Writing in English, Drama, English Language Teaching and Linguistics. More than a hundred students have received their Ph.D.s from the Department so far, around 20 of them in the last five years.
The Department regularly hosts seminars and conferences on different aspects of language, literature and culture, and brings out a biannual scholarly journal, Interventions. The Department library has a rich collection of over 25,000 books, including digital books and several journals, and is a major reference centre for scholars and researchers in the area.
The department has a Language Lab and a studio for material production funded by the UGC.
The faculty of the Department are actively associated with the UGC, NCERT, NTM and other universities and centres of Higher Education in the country.
Over the years, the Department has had the privilege of having on its faculty such illustrious scholars and highly regarded teachers as Prof. C.T. Thomas, Prof. Sheppard, Prof. R. Vishwanathan, Prof. C.P. Sivadasan, Prof. Mohammed Elias, Prof. N. Ramachandran Nair and Dr. T.K. Ramachandran.
