OVERVIEW

The Department of English of South Calcutta Girls College was established in 1932. In the beginning, only the Pass/ General Course was taught. It was in 1998, that the Honours Course was introduced.
The intake capacity of the Department has seen a steady rise over the years, along with a consistent demand for the subject. It remains one of the most popular subjects for students to opt every year during the Admission Procedure. In the Academic Session starting in 2016, the total intake capacity of the Department was 47 students in First Year Honours Course. As on 2016, the Department boasts of over 150 students, the three years and the Honours and the General Courses combined. In the academic session 2017-18, the strength of the students affiliated to the Honours Course was 82. Similarly in the academic session 2018-19 it was 85, excluding the general students.
Students belong to different cross sections of the Society and the Reservation of Seats has ensured that Students who may not belong to the socially privileged strata of society also have a fair chance to compete at the highest level.
The Department of English boasts of a Seminar Library which consists of books, reference and critical material and DVDS.
The Departmental Seminar Library boasts of 104 books and 16 DVDS bought mostly from grants received from the U.G.C. Students are encouraged to issue books and DVDs for reference work and widening the horizon of their knowledge. The Central Library possesses 2349 books exclusively for the English Department and 10 DVDs as of now, pertaining to the Honours Course. Movie Screenings are held in association with the library to help the students understand the dynamics of a text better, specially a play and a novel.

List Of Faculty in English Department

TEACHING-LEARNING

The Department looks to instill the belief that education is not what is merely contained within what is prescribed in the syllabus. Rather it is a more holistic experience and hence it inspires the students to think out of the box, trying to make their Graduation course a more comprehensive experience. Apart from taking an active part in Departmental and Inter- Departmental Seminars, the students every year, prepare a Wall Magazine on issues ranging from Harry Potter, to Western Movies and their influences and other literary genres. The Department always tries its best, with its limited resources to organize for visiting faculties to deliver lectures on different aspects of the Three Year Course Syllabus.

Audiovisual classes are regularly taken.

CAPACITY BUILDING

Workshops : N/A
Seminars:N/A
Departmental Magazine:Wall magazines are regularly published by the students of the department. A wall-magazine on Popular Culture was published by the third semester students on 20th September, 2019. Another one was previously published by the students on Manga comics.

Talks:Jayati Gupta, Professor of English at the West Bengal State University and eminent teacher and researcher at the erstwhile Presidency College, Kolkata, was invited as resource person to deliver a talk on The History of Tragedy as a Western Genre to students of the English Department. Prof. Gupta mapped the routes of tragedy in the West through various tenses and regions, ranging from the classical Greek era to the Elizabethan, modernist and post world war periods.
Anupama Mohan, Asstt. Professor in English at Presidency University, presented a talk on Minute Modernisms . The lecture explored characteristics of modernism and its variants as a movement across arts, continents and tenses.
The department invited Prof. Suddhaseel Sen, faculty of English in Presidency University, for a lecture on Indian Adaptations of Shakespeare with Special Reference to Maqbool. His lecture on Indian Shakespeares on stage and screen across languages, through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, was followed by a lively discussion with students.
A lecture-demonstration by Subhranil Sarkar, gifted young sitarist of the Etawah Gharana, on Tradition and Individual Talent: Evolution of Indian Classical Music through Sitar was organised along with an inter-college poster competition on Music, Narrative and Desire. The inter-disciplinary lecture traced the intersections of music, narrative and hybridity in the travels, evolution and variations of the sitar, an instrument that could be read as metonym of north Indian classical music.
Prof. Sayan Aich Bhowmick, was invited by the department to deliver a talk on Haider & The Kashmir Question.

STUDENT PROGRESSION

2016-2017:

• PART I: 81.81% (pass percentage)
• PART II: 83.33% ( ˜ )
• PART III: 100%

2017-2018:

• PART I: 83% (pass percentage)
• PART II: 69.69% ( ˜ )
• PART III: 81.81%

2018-2019:

• PART I: NA
• PART II: 86.3%
• PART III: 81.48

OUTCOME

The Department wishes to go from strength to strength in the coming days, hoping to organize a greater number of seminars, inviting external faculties to come and deliver lectures. The focus is and will remain to inculcate the love of literature amongst the students, opening up the world of arts, aesthetics and on a practical level arm them for the future that awaits them outside the four walls of the classroom. And maybe in the future, we would be sufficient enough, in terms of Faculty and Infrastructure to start the P.G section of our own.

COURSES OFFERED

UG Honours and General Courses are offered.

RESEARCH

N/A

EVENTS

The Department hosts movie screenings, sometimes in association with the Cine Club and sometimes independently, to give the students a taste of literary classics and how they have been interpreted and adapted onto the big screen.
The department also regularly organizes quiz, debate programmes on literary and contemporary topics and cultural events where students participate actively.

Departmental Activities

1. Department of English had organized an inter-departmental creative arts event on 9th September, 2020 via google meet platform. The event was named as ˜Seeking Solace in Creative Arts during pandemic.
The prevalent discourse of contemporary times has seen a shift of paradigm brought about by thepandemic,which has left no part of the globe unaffected. The lockdown was a massive disruption, bringinggrief, pain and discomfort and as we confined ourselves within the four walls, it was a suitable opportunity to seek respite in varying forms of creative arts. Department of English had asked students from all the departments of South Calcutta Girls College to submit Original Prose pieces, poems, posters, photographsand paintings for the said event. The students submitted works of their creative expression which helped to develop their power of expression,empathy,critical reading and thinking. The event was a great success. We managed to seamlessly present students creative pieces and the teachers gave their encouraging inputs and suggestions.

2. Department of English had organized a students seminar on ˜Writing as Resistance: Tracing the Voices of Dissent in Literature on 19th September, 2020 via Google meet platform. Students from all the semesters were asked to present their papers on literary works where the dissenting voice against authoritarian and dictatorial institutions can be found. It was a departmental event where academic writing practices of students were cultivated and encouraged. The event witnessed stimulated academic discussions between students and teachers where the conversations enriched their writing methodology.

Last Modified : Thu 12th December 2024 at 10:51:06 AM