Introduction

The Post-Graduate Department of English has earned for itself a good reputation through the quality of its teaching and research activities, in academic circles. 

Department Mission

• To Provide Excellent Academic, Physical, Administrative, and Moral ambience.
• To Promote Quality and Excellence in Teaching, Learning and Research.
• To Preserve and promote uniqueness and novelty of regional languages, folklore, art and culture.
• To Contribute towards building a socially sensitive, humane,and  inclusive society.
• To Cultivate critical thinking that can spark creativity and innovation

About the Department

The Department of English came into existence in 1981. It offers MA and Ph.D. degrees.  In its initial years, the well-known literary critic and bilingual writer Prof. C. N. Ramachandran was at the helm of affairs and moulded the Department.  He was Professor Emeritus here during 1996-98.  During the 1990s, the Department had Visiting Professors like Prof. T.R.S. Sharma and Prof. D.A Shankar, both well-known scholars. Over the years, the Department has organized several annual ELT workshops, 5 UGC Refresher courses, besides two national conference/workshops and one international conference.  A three-day National Seminar on “Fiction and Political Ideology” was held in October 1988. A two-day National Workshop on Canadian Studies was held in March 2013.

Dr R. Shashidhar and Dr KishoriNayak K. (both Commonwealth Fellows) were promoted as Professors in 2003-04 under the Career Advancement Scheme; Dr RavishankarRao and Dr Parinitha were promoted as Professors more recently. Dr R. G. Hegde was appointed as Professor in December 2013, but has since returned to his parent department.

During the past 8 years, our faculty members have participated in 40 national and 35  international conferences.  Many internationally recognized scholars like Padamabhushan Prof. C. D. Narasimhaiah,  Padmabhushan U.R. Ananthamurthy,  Dr.GirishKarnad,  Prof. Harish Trivedi,  Prof. Prafulla C. Kar,  Prof. Susie Tharu,  Prof. Stephen Slemon,  Prof. P.K. Rajan and others have visited the Department to deliver expert lectures on various literary issues, from time to time.The Department has produced 20 MPhils and 29 PhDs to date. At present, 23 scholars have registered themselves for the doctoral programme offered by the Department. 

The various areas of specialization that the faculty have an interest in include Critical  Theory, Post colonialism, American Literature, Feminism and Women’s Writing, Partition Narratives,Translation Studies, Indian Writing in English, Post-colonialism, Film Studies, Popular Fiction, Gender Studies and Missionary Narratives.  A language laboratory for students of the Department has been set up.  Our future plans for the Department include developing a Centre for Post-Colonial Studies.