Paper 13: ENG-HC-6016
Modern European Drama
Credits: 5 (Theory) + 1 (Tutorial)
Marks: 80 (End-Semester Examination) + 20 (Internal Assessment)
The paper aims at introducing students to the innovative dramatic works of playwrights from different locations in Europe, which taken together represents the wide range of modern drama and its fortunes on the written page and the stage. The selected plays would allow an understanding of the emergence of avant garde movements and trends and dramatic devices and techniques during the period of modernism which eventually influenced theatrical practices in other nations of the world.
Texts:
• Henrik Ibsen: Ghosts
• Anton Chekhov: The Cherry Orchard
• Bertolt Brecht: The Caucasian Chalk Circle
• Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot
Suggested Topics and Background Prose Readings for Class Presentations Topics
• Politics, Social Change and the Stage
• Text and Performance
• European Drama: Realism and Beyond
• Tragedy and Heroism in Modern European Drama
• The Theatre of the Absurd
Paper 14: ENG-HC-6026
Postcolonial Literatures
Credits: 5 (Theory) + 1 (Tutorial)
Marks: 80 (End-Semester Examination) + 20 (Internal Assessment)
European Colonialism since the fifteenth century changed the face of the world in many significant ways, and the effects of the experience of colonialism remain in many countries around the world even in the postcolonial era. This paper gives the students an opportunity to acquaint themselves with some of the novels, short stories and poems from postcolonial literatures across the world, with the texts showcasing the many regional, cultural differences and peculiarities, as well as common and shared experiences of the postcolonial condition.
Texts:
• Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Chronicle of a Death Foretold
• Bessie Head: ‘The Collector of Treasures’
• Ama Ata Aidoo: ‘The Girl who can’
• Grace Ogot: ‘The Green Leaves’
• Shyam Selvadurai: Funny Boy
• Pablo Neruda: ‘Tonight I can Write’; ‘The Way Spain Was’
• Derek Walcott: ‘A Far Cry from Africa’; ‘Names’
• David Malouf: ‘Revolving Days’; ‘Wild Lemons’
• Easterine Kire: When the River Sleeps
Suggested Topics and Background Prose Readings for Class Presentations Topics
• De-colonization, Globalization and Literature
• Literature and Identity Politics
• Writing for the New World Audience
• Region, Race, and Gender
• Postcolonial Literatures and Questions of Form
Paper 7: ENG-HE-6016
Literature and Cinema
Credits: 5 (Theory) + 1 (Tutorial)
Marks: 80 (End-Semester Examination) + 20 (Internal Assessment)
• James Monaco: ‘The language of film: signs and syntax’, in How To Read a Film:The World of Movies, Media & Multimedia (New York: OUP, 2009) chap. 3, pp. 170–249.
• Romeo & Juliet (1968; dir. Franco Zeffirelli, Paramount); and Romeo + Juliet (1996; dir. Baz Luhrmann, 20th Century Fox) [Adaptations of William Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet, and its adaptations]
• Earth (1998; dir. Deepa Mehta, Cracking the Earth Films Incorp.) [Bapsi Sidhwa: Ice-Candy-Man’s adaptation]; and Pinjar (2003; dir. C.P. Dwivedi, Lucky Star Entertainment) [Amrita Pritam, Pinjar: The Skeleton and Other Stories, tr. Khushwant Singh (New Delhi: Tara Press, 2009) and its adaptation]
• Ganashatru (1989; dir. Satyajit Ray, NFDC) [Henrik Ibsen: An Enemy of the People’s adaptation]; Rudaali (1993; Kalpana Lajmi, NFDC) [Mahasweta Devi: Rudaali]
Suggested Topics and Background Prose Readings for Class Presentations Topics
• Theories of Adaptation
• Transformation and Transposition
• Hollywood and ‘Bollywood’
• The ‘Two Ways of Seeing’
• Adaptation as Interpretation
Paper 8: ENG-HE-6026
World Literatures
Credits: 5 (Theory) + 1 (Tutorial)
Marks: 80 (End-Semester Examination) + 20 (Internal Assessment)
• V.S. Naipaul: A Bend in the River (London: Picador, 1979).
• Marie Clements:The Unnatural and Accidental Women, in Staging Coyote’s Dream: An Anthology of First Nations, ed. Monique Mojica and Ric Knowles (Toronto: Playwrights Canada, 2003)
• Antoine De Saint-Exupery:The Little Prince (New Delhi: Pigeon Books, 2008)
• Julio Cortazar: ‘Blow-Up’, in Blow-Up and other Stories (New York: Pantheon, 1985).
• Judith Wright: ‘Bora Ring’, in Collected Poems (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 2002) p. 8.
• Gabriel Okara: ‘The Mystic Drum’, in An Anthology of Commonwealth Poetry, ed. C.D. Narasimhaiah (Delhi: Macmillan, 1990) pp. 132–3.
• Kishwar Naheed: ‘The Grass is Really like me’, in We the Sinful Women (New Delhi:
Rupa, 1994) p. 41.
• Shu Ting: ‘Assembly Line’, in A Splintered Mirror: Chinese Poetry From the Democracy Movement, tr. Donald Finkel, additional translations by Carolyn Kizer (New York: North Point Press, 1991).
• Jean Arasanayagam: ‘Two Dead Soldiers’, in Fusillade (New Delhi: Indialog, 2003) pp. 89–90.
Suggested Topics and Background Prose Readings for Class Presentations Topics
• The Idea of World Literature
• Memory, Displacement and Diaspora
• Hybridity, Race and Culture
• Adult Reception of Children’s Literature
• Literary Translation and the Circulation of Literary Texts
• Aesthetics and Politics in Poetry
Paper 9: ENG-HE-6036
Partition Literature
Credits: 5 (Theory) + 1 (Tutorial)
Marks: 80 (End-Semester Examination) + 20 (Internal Assessment)
• Intizar Husain: Basti, tr. Frances W. Pritchett (New Delhi: Rupa, 1995).
• Amitav Ghosh: The Shadow Lines.
• Dibyendu Palit: ‘Alam's Own House’, tr. Sarika Chaudhuri, Bengal Partition Stories: An Unclosed Chapter, ed. Bashabi Fraser (London: Anthem Press, 2008) pp. 453–72.
• Manik Bandhopadhya: ‘The Final Solution’, tr. Rani Ray, Mapmaking: PartitionStories from Two Bengals, ed. Debjani Sengupta (New Delhi: Srishti, 2003) pp.23–39.
• Sa’adat Hasan Manto: ‘Toba Tek Singh’, Black Margins: Manto, tr. M. Asaduddin (New Delhi: Katha, 2003) pp. 212-20.
• Lalithambika Antharajanam: ‘A Leaf in the Storm’, tr. K. Narayana Chandran, in Stories about the Partition of India ed. Alok Bhalla (New Delhi: Manohar, 2012) pp. 137–45.
• Faiz Ahmad Faiz: ‘For Your Lanes, My Country’, in In English: Faiz Ahmad Faiz, A Renowned Urdu Poet, tr. and ed. Riz Rahim (California: Xlibris, 2008) p. 138.
• Jibananda Das: ‘I Shall Return to This Bengal’, tr. Sukanta Chaudhuri, in Modern Indian Literature (New Delhi: OUP, 2004) pp. 8–13.
• Gulzar: ‘Toba Tek Singh’, tr. Anisur Rahman, in Translating Partition, ed. Ravikant and Tarun K. Saint (New Delhi: Katha, 2001) p.x.
Suggested Topics and Readings for Class Presentation Topics
• Colonialism, Nationalism, and the Partition
• Communalism and Violence
• Homelessness and Exile
• Women in the Partition
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Paper 10: ENG-HE-6046
Travel Writing
Credits: 5 (Theory) + 1 (Tutorial)
Marks: 80 (End-Semester Examination) + 20 (Internal Assessment)
• Ibn Batuta: ‘The Court of Muhammad bin Tughlaq’, Khuswant Singh’s City Improbable: Writings on Delhi, Penguin
• Al Biruni: Chapter LXIII, LXIV, LXV, LXVI, in India by Al Biruni, edited by Qeyamuddin Ahmad, National Book Trust of India
• Mark Twain: The Innocent Abroad (Chapter VII , VIII and IX), Wordsworth Classics Edition
• Ernesto Che Guevara: The Motorcycle Diaries: A Journey around South America (the Expert, Home land for victor, The city of viceroys), Harper
• William Dalrymple: City of Dijnn (Prologue, Chapters I and II), Penguin
• Rahul Sankrityayan: From Volga to Ganga (Translation by Victor Kierman) (Section I to Section II) Pilgrims Publishing
• Nahid Gandhi: Alternative Realties: Love in the Lives of Muslim Women, Chapter ‘Love, War and Widow’, Westland, 2013
• Vikram Seth: From Heaven Lake “Heaven Lake”
• Elisabeth Bumiller: May You be the Mother of a Hundred Sons: a Journey Among the Women of India, Chapters 2 and 3, pp.24-74 (New York: Penguin Books, 1991)
Suggested Topics and Background Prose Readings for Class Presentations
• Travel Writing and Ethnography
• Gender and Travel
• Globalization and Travel
• Travel and Religion
• Orientalism and Travel
Paper 11: ENG-HE-6056
Life Writing
Credits: 5 (Theory) + 1 (Tutorial)
Marks: 80 (End-Semester Examination) + 20 (Internal Assessment)
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Confessions, Part One, Book One, pp. 5-43, Translated by Angela Scholar (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
• Maya Angelou: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Chapter 6, pp. 37-49 (New York: Virago, 2004)
• M. K. Gandhi: Autobiography or the Story of My Experiments with Truth, Part I Chapters II-IX, pp.5-26(Ahmedabad: Navajivan Trust, 1993).
• Ismat Chugtai, A Life in Words: Memoirs, Chapter 1 (New Delhi: Penguin India, 2013).
• Binodini Dasi: My Story and Life as an Actress, pp. 61-83 (New Delhi: Kali for women, 1998).
• Revathi: Truth About Me: A Hijra Life Story, Chapters One to Four, 1-37 (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2010.)
• Richard Wright: Black Boy, Chapter 1, pp. 9-44 (United Kingdom: Picador, 1968).
• Sharankumar Limbale: The Outcaste, Translated by Santosh Bhoomkar, pp. 1-39 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003)
Suggested Topics and Background Prose Readings for class Presentations
• Self and society
• Role of memory in writing autobiography
• Autobiography as resistance
• Autobiography as rewriting history
Paper 12: ENG-HE-6066
Writings from North East India
Credits: 5 (Theory) + 1 (Tutorial)
Marks: 80 (End-Semester Examination) + 20 (Internal Assessment)
Section I: Oral Narratives
• Mamang Dai: On Creation Myths and Oral Narratives
• Tashi Chopel: The Story of Creation
• Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih: U Thlen: The Man-Eating Serpent
Section II: Poetry
• Deva Kanta Barua: ‘And we open the Gates’
• Ajit Barua: ‘Lovely is Our Village’, Parts I & II
• Rajendra Bhandari: ‘Time Does Not Pass’
Section III: Fiction
• Homen Borgohain: ‘Spring in Hell’
• Temsula Ao: ‘An Old Man Remembers’
• Mahim Bora: ‘Audition’
Section IV: Prose
• Gopinath Bardoloi: ‘Reminiscences of Gandhiji’
• Moji Riba: ‘Rites, In Passing’
Section V: Drama
• Arun Sarma: Aahar
Suggested Topics and Background Prose Readings for class Presentations
• The Folk in Narrative
• Myths and Legends
• Memory and Telling
• Writing Northeast India
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DSE I-B
ENG-RE-6016
Academic Writing
Credits: 5 (Theory) + 1 (Tutorial) =6 Marks: 100 (80+20)
The English language is the language of higher education as well as the language used in a variety of formal settings. Hence students are expected to develop the requisite proficiency in academic writing which involves the ability to write summaries, abstracts, reviews, reports, conference /seminar presentations etc. This paper is aimed at developing academic writing skills by acquainting students with the different kinds of academic writing and the skills to be acquired to write academic English for various purposes;it will also give them practice in the processes involved in producing pieces of good academic writing. The paper consists of two modules –module 1 and module 2.
Module 1: Essentials of Academic Writing
This module will familiarize students with samples of different kinds of academic writing and concentrate on developing the basic skills required for such writing as building up vocabulary for formal use, gathering ideas or data for purposes of description or building up an argument or thesis statement, organizing the ideas so that there is coherence and clarity of thinking, making paragraphs and writing without grammatical and spelling errors.
Module 2: Practice in Academic Writing
This module will focus on giving students practice in different kinds of academic writingtaking them through the processes of making drafts, revising, editing, and writing the final version. They are also to be taught to prepare bibliographies, citations and references for writing intended for publication in academic journals.
