Course Detail
ENG 102: Composition I [3 credits]
The main focus of this course is writing. This course attempts to enhance students' writing abilities through diverse writing skills and techniques. Students will be introduced to two aspects of expository writing: personalized/subjective and analytical/persuasive. In the first category, students will write essays expressing their subjective viewpoints. In the second category, students will analyse issues objectively, sticking firmly to factual details. This course seeks to develop students' analytical abilities so that they are able to produce works that are critical and thought provoking.
ENG 111: Introduction to Linguistics [3 credits]
The course aims to familiarize students with basic concepts in linguistics including phonetics; phonology; morphology, syntax and semantics. Other aspects of this course will include definition and characteristics of language; role of linguistics in language teaching, relationship between linguistics and literature; second language acquisition and second language learning.
ENG 113: Introduction to English Poetry [3 credits]
Introduction to Poetry is a foundation course for the beginners of English literature undergraduate students. The aim of the course is to introduce students to the world of poetry in a way that they fall in love with poetry! While the periodical details of English poetry will set the ground, students will be encouraged to appreciate the shape, sound, emotion and strength of poetry. The course covers wide ranges of poems from across the globe, starting from British canonical to American poems; gradually we will reach closer to our continent and home. English poems written in Bangladesh will be taught to encourage students read and write poems on topics that matter to them.
ENG 114: Introduction to English Drama [3 credits]
The study of literature allows one to investigate the ways in which literary culture has engaged with and shaped society and continues to do so even today. This literature course explores many aspects of culture, performance and society. Introduction to English Drama is a historical overview of the development of drama and social environment for interpretation. This course will concentrate on critical reading and analysis of dramatic literature. The course offers analysis of drama, fundamentals of drama and dramatic forms. We will read a variety of dramatic literature, spanning the centuries from the ancient Greek theatre to modern times.
ENG 115: Introduction to English Prose [3 credits]
The development of English Prose has seen different stages and it continued to develop in response to the social and cultural atmosphere and changing norms. With roots in didactic prose, Biblical translations and oral traditions, English Prose has developed into various forms of literature, creative/non-fiction, and many genres of short story and novel. In more recent history, it has evolved into forms of journalistic and informative writing, political and social critique, allegory, personal narrative and even hybrid text. The works will be addressed simultaneously as a form of writing and also in terms of different thematic and cultural issues.
ENG 122: English Phonetics and Phonology [3 credits]
This course is designed to promote a comprehensive study of English articulatory phonetics that deals with the production of English speech sounds. It intends to develop students' skills in perceiving, articulating and transcribing speech sounds. It also focuses on segments, syllables, stress, intonation and functions of intonation that are segmental and supra-segmental features. On the one hand, the practical aim of this course is to help students pronounce English accurately and on the other hand, its theoretical aim is to give students a deeper understanding of the sound system of English. Besides, this course covers a comparative study of Bangla and English phonetics.
Prerequisite: ENG 111
ENG 123: History of English Language [3 credits]
This course introduces students to the history and expansion of the English language from its inception to the present day. This course starts with an introduction and overview of the history of English language then major themes like the Indo- European family of languages, Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English and Modern English are discussed. This course also explores English around the world in modern days including English in Britain, English in America, English in Africa and English in Asia and Pacific. Finally, the social and political factors that affect language changes are also explored briefly.
Prerequisite: ENG 111
ENG 201: Composition II [3 credits]
The course is designed as a workshop on practical writing focusing on principles and style, correct and effective expressions, and organization and writing.
Prerequisite: ENG 102
ENG 205: Introduction to Media Studies [3 credits]
Media literacy and critical understanding of culture is now a prerequisite for students majoring in any disciplines within the liberal arts and humanities. This course addresses this need and offers a range of texts for critical investigation. Emphasizing the growing range and significance of the media, identifying and analyzing how media and literary representations intersect, this course is
designed to help students investigate the poetics and politics of media representation. This course offers an extensive and practical analysis of different forms of art and the politics and philosophy of different modes of media and popular culture. This course addresses the complex relation between media and literature with a view to explore how the contents and forms of culture
construct and influence the production of literature and criticism. Abreast with contemporary trends in cultural studies, it also studies the production, conditioning, distribution, and consumption of discourses, such as television, advertising, minority and popular literatures.
The course looks at the functions of media, the history of transformations in media and the institutions that help define media's place in society. The course will explore different theoretical perspectives on the role and power of media in society in influencing our social values, political beliefs, identities and behaviors. Students also have the opportunity to analyze specific films and
explore the meaning of the changes that occur when a particular narrative is adapted into a different media form. The impact of media on individual attitudes, values, and behaviors; the role of media professionals, and the impact of new media technologies will be examined. We will look at the ways in which the politics of class, gender and race influence both the production and reception of media. Through the readings, lectures, and discussions as well as their own writing and oral presentations, students will have multiple opportunities to engage in critical debates in the field as well as explore the role of media in their own lives.
Prerequisite: ENG 201
ENG 211: Sociolinguistics [3 credits]
This course has been designed to discuss the relationships between language and society. At first, students will learn the theories of register analysis, code-switching, speech accommodation, linguistic and social variables and so on in order to apply the theories in conversation analysis. The second segment of the course students are required to undertake a project on conversation analysis which will require them to collect data from their speech communities. They will use the theories and terms they learn in class to analyze data for their project.
Prerequisites: ENG 111, ENG 201
ENG 212: Psycholinguistics [3 credits]
Psycholinguistics is a sub-discipline within linguistics that explores the cognitive processes associated with language use. The broad topics dealt with in this course are language acquisition, language processing (comprehension and production), and language loss. A substantial component of this course is first language acquisition i.e. how children learn their first language, which is an essential foundation to a more advanced course on Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Students, in this course, will be exposed to theories of language acquisition and processing, some of which they will have a chance to examine through Bangla data.
Prerequisites: ENG 111, ENG 201
ENG 213: Survey of English Literature I [3 credits]
Taught as a fundamental literature course it aims to acquaint students with the first half of English Literature and the literary trends which added new facets to the epoch of English Literature. Being the first one of the three survey courses, this course is designed to give the students a comprehensive knowledge of English literature of the early periods, the Medieval, the Renaissance and the Jacobean period. We will start the curriculum with Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, the first English writing with some directness to the modern readers. Some outstanding literary works from the Elizabethan and the Jacobean Literature will be taught and discussed at length too. We will read and discuss about different early English poets, their poems and poetic styles. As a part of this endeavor, we will also study the development of English Drama and theatrical techniques of the Renaissance and later period.
Prerequisite: ENG 201
ENG 214: Survey of English Literature II [3 credits]
This course aims to acquaint students with the literary and social history of the 17th and 18th century England, periods which are also known as Age of Milton and the Restoration. During this period the philosophies of ‘Empiricism’ and ‘Rationalism’ transformed the European societies. The influence of ‘Enlightenment and ‘sensibility’, the tensions of ‘Puritanism’ (1642-1660) and the literary revival of ‘Restoration’ (1660-98) marked the literature of this period. Enlightenment ideas gave expressions of ‘Protest’ to social injustice, endowing a new tradition to literature. The greatest English epic, Paradise Lost, the first English novel, Robinson Crusoe, some remarkable mock epics, political satires, and lampoons were written during this time. This added richness and diversity to the period’s work, which shall be analyzed through the course.
Prerequisite: ENG 201
ENG 215: Survey of English Literature III [3 credits]
Blake to Hardy: Intensive Study of Blake, Wordsworth, Jane Austen, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Byron, Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, Tennyson, Browning, Arnold and Hardy. The course aims to take the students through the main movements and trends of writing of some of the most influential poets, playwrights and novelists of the 19th century in the British Literary Canon. The main objective of the course is to acquaint students with the sources, influence and content of Romantic and Victorian literature of the late eighteenth and nineteenth century England, which will serve as a foundation for their future reading of literature and literary/cultural movements.
Prerequisite: ENG 201
ENG 217: Shakespeare [3 credits]
Study of selected work of William Shakespeare ranging from tragedies, comedies, history plays and a selection of his sonnets. The study of Literature can provide students with a fresh and creative angle with which to approach their studies in particular and their lives in general. Shakespeare is one of the most complex playwrights. Even today, scholars continue to debate whether Shakespeare’s emphasis is psychological, religious, social, or political. In the 21st century we are facing the same challenges and asking the same questions as Shakespeare’s characters faced and asked. An essential element of the course is sustained reaction to/discussion of issues raised in the plays. The goal of the course will be to see how this great writer deals with the great questions concerning human action, human will, and human passions; and what his view of man is.
Prerequisite: ENG 201
ENG 218: Post-Colonial Writing in English [3 credits]
This course will look at the vast body of contemporary writing in English from ex-colonial countries. Possible authors are Salman Rushdie, Ngugi 'waThiong'o, Amitav Ghosh, Chinua Achebe, Derek Walcott. The international status of English in today's world will be examined through these readings, and the changed but continuing significance of English studies highlighted.
Prerequisite: ENG 201
ENG 220 Creative Writing [3 credits]
This is an introductory course in creative writing. It teaches students the fundamentals of writing short stories, poems, plays and other works of creative fiction and non-fiction. This highly interactive course offers workshops, seminars and presentations by practitioners of this field. Students are expected to present original projects by the end of the semester.
Prerequisite: ENG 201
ENG 221: Discourse Analysis [3 credits]
This course has been designed to provide students with knowledge of discourse analysis and meaning in context. At first, students will learn the theories of pragmatics such cooperative principles, deictic expressions, speech acts and so on in order to apply the theories in conversation analysis. The second segment of the course students are required to undertake a project on any type of discursive practices in Bangladeshi context. They will use Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis lens to analyze data for their project.
Prerequisites: ENG 111, ENG 201
ENG 222: Popular Literature [3 credits]
This course is designed to train the students in identifying some of the ideological and material conditions that worked as catalysts behind the emergence of popular literature manifested in different genres. Through a genre-focused pedagogy, the course will address the history ofpopular literature and offer a range of texts representative of different periods. Emphasizing the
socio-cultural and politico-economic issues that often make a text best-seller, the course will direct the students in identifying major themes and concerns within a genre, guide them in investigating the cultural and historical undercurrents that made it popular. The course will also analyze the historical, social, political, and literary dynamics which foster the development of the
specific genre that affects the target audiences. The course will demonstrate how popular literature reflects the concerns and prejudices of its own time.
Prerequisite: ENG 201
ENG 232: History of English Language Teaching [3 credits]
This course is designed to review the history of English language teaching. It covers the spread of English language teaching in Europe, and gives an overview of English language teaching since 1900 and the teaching of English as a foreign or second language since 1900, including foundations, development, changes and variations that took place in ELT.
Prerequisites: ENG 111, ENG 201
ENG 240: Restoration and Early Eighteenth-Century Literature [3 credits]
The course will focus on the rise of new literary genres and the contemporary efforts to find new definitions of heroism and wit, good taste and good manners, sin and salvation, individual identity and social responsibility, and the pressures exerted by changing social, intellectual, and political contexts of literature. Readings from Dryden, the Restoration dramatists, a few early feminist writers, Defoe, Swift, and Pope.
Prerequisite: ENG 201
ENG 241: Later Eighteenth-Century Literature [3 credits]
A selection from works by Johnson, Boswell and Sterne, together with shorter samplings from Gray, Burke, Goldsmith, Burney, Reynolds, Wollstonecraft, and others.
Prerequisite: ENG 201
ENG 242: The Study of English [3 credits]
This course will introduce students with various research methods in English language teaching (ELT) and Applied Linguistics. Students will learn key principles of research design, how to design a research, and utilisation of different research methods. Topics to be covered include qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods approaches, reviewing relevant literature, various
data collecting and analysing methods, and writing up qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods research.
Prerequisites: ENG 111, ENG 201
ENG 247: Eighteenth-Century English Novel [3 credits]
The course is a study of selected 18th century English novels read in the context of both contemporary and current novel criticism. Novels by Edgeworth, Burney, Defoe, Smollett, Fielding, Sterne, Richardson, and Austen.
Prerequisite: ENG 201
ENG 257: Victorian Poetry [3 credits]
Victorian poetry is marked not only by experimentation in style, but also by the portrayal of the doubts and conflicts of the day. This is represented by a group of poets, who while having very little in common with each other, nevertheless hold up for the reader of the period, the main intellectual and spiritual tensions that marked nineteenth-century England. This course will take the students through the poetry of Tennyson, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Arnold, Swinburne, Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti and Hopkins. Both poetic experimentation and style and themes and conflicts will be the focus of this course.
Prerequisite: ENG 201
ENG 260: Nineteenth-Century Women Novelists of England [3 credits]
The nineteenth century is not only the great age of the English novel, it is also the era in which women appeared as major writers of the novel. This course will take the students through the works of the major women novelists of the nineteenth century: Mary Shelley, Jane Austen, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, George Eliot and Elizabeth Gaskell. The course will highlight the wide variety of themes and styles that these writers represent ranging from the Gothic to social realism.
Prerequisite: ENG 201
ENG 266: The English Text in the Indian / Colonial Classroom [3 credits]
This course will trace the history of English studies in the Indian subcontinent. Starting with Macaulay's 1835 'Minutes on Education', it will look at the purpose of the colonial English curriculum. Macaulay's 'Minutes' will be read in conjunction with 'native' (Indian or Bengali responses) to the English educational scheme, reflected in thinkers such as Vidyasagar ('Notes on the Sanskrit College' [in English]) and the contemporary educational reformers and literature.
Prerequisite: ENG 201
ENG 301: Research Methodology [3 credits]
This course provides practical training in a range of research skills and methodologies. It includes classes on the choice and organization of thesis / research topics, the use of library resources, the Internet, the use of manuscripts and archives, media audiences and institutions, concepts of textuality, and the writing, documentation, and presentation of research articles / theses. This course also introduces qualitative and quantitative methods in research. In this regard, strategies for planning and carrying out various types of research will also be discussed and applied.
Prerequisite: ENG 201
ENG 310: Feminism and Feminist Works and Women Writers in Bangla Literature [3 credits]
This course aims at discussing the significance and impact of feminism in Bangla Literature as well as to investigate the ways female writers de/construct the images of women in their works. Influence of global feminism and feminist discourses on Bangla literature in general, Bangladeshi literature in particular, women’s views on freedom and liberty, and women’s struggle to develop and disseminate self-identity in repressive hetero-normative social structures are some of the crucial issues that this course is designed to discuss critically.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 311: Post-colonial Bangla Literature [3 credits]
Post-War Bangla literature, despite having European influences, reconfigured its uniqueness in terms of the diversifications in style, tone, and diction. Works from this period often focused on the significant transformation of the rural farmers to urban factory workers bearing remarkable changes in the language of fiction, the images of poetry, and the overall treatments of themes.
Literary works from this period introduced a distinct spirit of reinterpreting the continuously disintegrating world and its grueling absurdities from a relatively stable politico-historical agency free from colonial bondages. Consequently, the burgeoning post-colonial consciousness amongst the writers introduced a paradigm shift in the literatures of this period. Keeping all these
issues in concern, this course will critically examine some of the major works from this period and engage the students in analyzing the poetics and politics of post-colonialism in literature.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 312: Bangla Literature: First phase of Modernism [3 credits]
Modernism in Bangla literature is often studied with reference to writers and works directly influenced by the values associated with the philosophies of the Age of Enlightenment in Europe. Inspired by the ideas behind the French Revolution as well as the impact it had on the formation of individualism, nationalism, and humanism, Bengali writers for the first time voiced the aspirations of ordinary people and incorporated them as real-life characters in their works. Moving beyond the fringes of religion and caste, works of fiction from this period distinctly focused on pressing socio-political issues and declared the emergence of a new era in Bangla literature. Keeping all these issues in concern, this course aims at introducing the learners to some of the seminal texts from this period and engage them in critically examining the nature of modernism in Bangla literature.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 315: First language acquisition: How Children Learn Language [3 credits]
The course introduces the students to the theoretical aspects of how a child acquires her first language. The course also exposes the students to the developmental features of child language with regard to phonological, morphological, and syntactic properties. Crosslinguistic data, with a strong emphasis on the English and Bangla data, will be used to demonstrate children’s developmental trajectory through the first language. As a part of the course, students will analyse child language data in Bangla or other languages, and derive possible interpretations with references to the theoretical aspects learnt in this course.
Prerequisites: ENG 111, ENG 301
ENG 319: Modernism [3 credits]
In 1888 Friedrich Nietzsche in his novella Twilight of the Idols, writes about the death of the old and the birth of the New, a re-evaluation of all of one’s old values, therefore very consciously setting the mood for the next fifty years in literary movement. This course will delve into the significance the death of traditional literary practices and birth of new ones, had on the thinkers, writers and poets of the late 19th and mid-20th century. Ezra Pound’s slogan “Make it new” echoes through the different styles, forms and tones of Modernist writers and this course will help students trace the newness that Modernism gave birth to. The course will look at texts from Europe and America, historical movements and the aesthetic changes in writing and thought.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 320: Arts and Visual Literacy [3 credits]
This course explores ways in which physical, perceptual, affective and cognitive modes of learning interact when viewing, interpreting, and assessing designed visual information within socio-cultural contexts. Students will critically analyze the narratives told through the art and mass media not only of the past, but also those surrounding us on a daily basis. Examples might
include looking at Catholic Church religious paintings and architecture of the 14th 15th and 16th centuries to gender representations in contemporary advertising and writing novels in blogs. Students will be presented with a wide array of visual and media literacy theories, and at the same time different mediums (print, online, electronic) will be presented to them in which art
and mass media are created and distributed to the viewer.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 327: Second Language Acquisition (SLA) [3 credits]
This course has been designed to provide students with knowledge of SLA. There are two segments in this course: issues and theoretical perspectives, and research. The first segment includes the key issues in SLA: the roles of L1, input, interaction and formal instruction in SLA, and learners' strategies. Besides, this course focuses on individual differences in SLA i.e. age, intelligence, attitude, motivation, memory etc. In the second segment of the course students are required to undertake a project on any issues related to SLA. This course also gives an overview of the major theories of SLA that include acculturation, accommodation, monitor-model, interlanguage and universal theories.
Prerequisites: ENG 111, ENG 301
ENG 328: Advanced Grammar [3 credits]
The course is designed for higher level students of Applied linguistics and ELT. The course introduces the students to a more ‘modern’ approach to analyse language, i.e. the descriptive approach as opposed to the prescriptive one, that they are already familiar with. The view promoted about grammar in this course is that grammar is the underlying system of languages in
the variations that people use. The traditional view regarding grammar forwarded previously to the students holds a purist position regarding grammar use, i.e. there are definite instructions regarding the ‘accurate’ use of language, and all users should adhere to those rules. The discourse on descriptive grammar breaks away from this rigid position, and is interested in exploring, and describing the variety of ways in which people use language in real life.
Prerequisites: ENG 111, ENG 301
ENG 330: Educational Theories [3 credits]
This is an introductory course aiming to familiarise students with the essential learning theories, which will contribute to their understanding of the very process of learning, and cognition. Areas of study will include neuroscience, social-cognitive theory, socio-cultural theory of learning, information processing theory, constructivism, cognitive learning processes and other contemporary learning issues. Equipped with the theoretical knowledge, students will be able to implement the fruits of their knowledge offering differentiated instructions. The course will pave their way to becoming a successful classroom facilitator.
Prerequisites: ENG 301, ENG 334
ENG 331: Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice [3 credits]
This course will introduce students to the core concepts in cultural theory as well as equip them with skills to analyse and understand cultural artifacts and movements in our own society. The course intends to give students a background in cultural studies, highlighting issues such as popular vs. ‘high’ culture, entertainment and cultural politics including feminist and postcolonial perspectives. This course is designed to enable students to apply literary and cultural theory to the life they see around them, thus making them into keen and analytical purveyors of culture. The course will begin by introducing students to the core concepts of culture, as well as the way that popular culture enters and influences our daily lives. Students will be expected to relate these theories to contemporary popular music, film and media, including television and the print media. However, the emphasis on theory will ensure the intellectual contents of the course. This is a very dynamic course and readings will change according to the contemporary context.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 332: Teaching Techniques [3 credits]
After students are introduced to an array of language teaching methods that have been proposed over the years, the course Teaching Techniques presents a natural progression towards the more practical aspects and issues of English Language teaching. To this end, the course emphasizes the understanding and execution of various hands-on pedagogical issues as well as tools that
have emerged in international literature as well as practices of the field. While from time to time, the course refers to major language teaching methods, the primary focus remains on the techniques proposed by Communicative Language Teaching and its various offshoots, for example, Task-based Language Learning, Content-Based Instruction, etc. Designed for students concentrating on English Language Teaching, the course offers a bridge between the theoretical discourses presented in ‘ENG 334: ELT Methodology’, a c o re course on language teaching methodologies, and ‘ENG 439: Teaching Practicum’, an advanced hands-on course on language teaching focusing on the actual implementation of various methods and techniques.
Prerequisites: ENG 301, ENG 334
ENG 333: Globalisation and the Media [3 credits]
The course will rely to a large extent on the work of the students, to bring concrete, up-to-date examples which we can use to assess the theoretical readings and reconsider their conclusions in light of our examples. We start with major debates on the role of communication and media technologies in network society, globalization, and transnationalism. We move on to focus on
how macro social forces and institutions such as state and market shape the development of social media and other new communication technologies. Finally, we discuss theoretical framework surrounding both phenomena, from that of simulation, to proper distance/proximity and the ‘other’.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 334: ELT Methodology [3 credits]
This course will provide students an overview and a comprehensive introduction to the teaching of English to the speakers of other languages. It will familiarise students with various approaches, methods and techniques of language teaching. Students will also be introduced to various teaching and learning related issues including understanding learners, role of culture in
teaching, selecting, evaluating and adopting textbooks and course materials. Students are encouraged to adopt a critical and reflective approach to their own teaching and learning.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 335: Linguistic Theories [3 credits]
This introductory course aims at familiarizing the students with the major theoretical developments in linguistics, namely Historicism, Structuralism, Functionalism, Generativism, and a few other theories of linguistics to help them develop an awareness of the different approaches to the study of language. The idea is to chart a conceptual ground on which language
as a medium of communication today stands.
Prerequisites: ENG 111, ENG 301
ENG 343: Classical Literary Theory [3 credits]
Intensive Study of Classical Texts of Literary Theory by Aristotle, Sydney, Dryden, Johnson, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Arnold, Eliot.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 354: Survey of American Literature I [3 credits]
This survey course focuses on American literature from its Puritan origins to the first half of the 20th century. Representative texts from each of the literary periods that eventually formed the canon of American literature will be discussed in detail. With particular attention to the issues of race, class, and gender, we will study how diverse writers represented, challenged, and helped to
create the dominant cultural mythologies that remain powerfully influential even today. During the semester we will read a wide array of American authors, such as Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Harriet Jacobs, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, Henry James, and Ernest Hemingway.
Through guided discussion and independent research, we will strengthen our ability to read and write critically about literary texts, and we will gain a deeper appreciation of American literary history as a rich terrain of contested values that can help us to understand what it means to be American.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 355: Survey of American Literature II [3 credits]
This survey course focuses on several landmark works of 20th century American literature. At the beginning of the century some American writers found their country provincial and left for Europe, while many who immigrated here saw it as the epitome of life and liberty. Those who remained here portrayed the politico-economic, socio-historical, racial issues through their fiction. World War I, The Great Depression, The Great Migration, The Civil Rights Movement, Neo-liberalism, late-capitalism, and many other factors directly influenced the 20th century literary scene in the US. The shift from modernism to postmodernism is equally reflected in poetry as it did in fiction. The first quarter of the century was also the time that witnessed the rise
of American drama. The Harlem Renaissance contributed significantly in enriching the tradition of American novel with works that are now considered classics.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 357: Survey of World Literature in Translation I [3 credits]
Intensive Study of Texts by Homer, Aristophanes, Sophocles, Euripides, Virgil, Ovid and Kalidas.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 358: Survey of World Literature in Translation II [3 credits]
This literature course will expose students to some of world's masterpieces written in languages other than English and translated into English. While reading each literary text, we will be particularly mindful of what can be "lost" or "gained" in translation, and how bigger issues such as class, space and time impact on the logic and art of translations. We will take a broad meaning
of the term ‘world literature’ which includes the traditional European classics from the 18th century as well as classics outside of the Euro-zone and may, often be, more contemporary to our time. While reading the texts, we will try to understand how the changing flows of world power relations as well as the current world without virtual borders have widened the meanings and
opportunities of world literature.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 359: Advanced Study of Shakespeare [3 credits]
Topics vary from year to year; the course supposes significant prior experience of Shakespearean drama and/or non-Shakespeare Renaissance drama.
Prerequisites: ENG 217, ENG 301
ENG 360: Romanticism: Crisis and Critique [3 credits]
An exploration of the dialogue between literature and philosophy and an examination of the role of language in engendering the ideas of genius, originality, self-authoring and poetic identity. Topics include Romantic irony, allegory, the sublime, the uncanny, Romantic fragments in opposition to philosophical systems, dreams, and mythmaking. Texts from the Romantic period as well as interpretations by modern writers are read. Authors include Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Mary Shelley, Herder, Schiller, Kant, Schlegel, Kleist, Holderlin, Derrida, Rousseau, de Man and Benjamin.
Prerequisites: ENG 215, ENG 301
ENG 362: The English Text in the Bengali / Colonial Classroom [3 credits]
This course will look at English writings in Bengal in the nineteenth century and writers such as Derozio, Madhusudan, Bankim, ToruDutt and so on. This reading will be offset with readings from the English romantic poets and the early Victorian novels, not only to trace influences, but also to look at the cultural and literary impact of the colonial venture on our own writings and imagination.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 366: Major Texts of the Feminist Tradition in the West [3 credits]
This course takes the students through the writings that have helped to shape feminist thought in the West. Concentrating on literary texts, it looks at the writings of Wollstonecraft, Kate Millet and Maya Angelou, covering the development of feminist thought from the Enlightenment to the twentieth century. Beginning by looking at major nineteenth century novels and poetry, it
proceeds to fiction written in the twentieth century, concentrating on the diversity of women’s
realities and situations.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 367: English Writing and British Colonialism [3 credits]
This course concentrates on twentieth-century texts and the ways in which the colonial experience is reflected in literary writing and critical thinking. “Postcolonial” writings will be read in conjunction with texts from the “imperial” centre that deal with colonial themes and issues. The Saidian notion of “counter-point” will be used to make texts speak to each other. The course will look at the “African, Caribbean and South Asian experience”. The course looks mainly at novels, but some poetry will also be covered.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 368: Milton [3 credits]
The course is designed as a survey of a broad array of Milton's writings in poetry and prose, with particular emphasis not only upon his individual accomplishments, but also upon contemporary discussions of who 'the poet' is and by what standards the accomplishments of poetry should be measured.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 401: Editing [3 credits]
The purpose of the course is to provide students with a thorough understanding of the elements (spelling, grammar, punctuation, syntax) needed to edit any article. Through the duration of the course, aspects of a newspaper such as page design and layout, editing pictures and graphics, typography, how imagination is used in news editing and what journalists have to be aware of when it comes to calculations will be discussed to create in students an expert understanding of editing.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 404: Copywriting [3 credits]
This course is developed with the aim to introduce students to the principles and practices of writing effective copy for print media advertising (magazines and newspapers), audiovisual advertising, direct mail, brochures, catalogs, the World Wide Web and other formats.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 408: Introduction to Syntax [3 credits]
The course analyses how sentences are formulated, and identifies how sentences are represented in the mental grammar of the native speakers. The course discusses the classification of words with regard to their syntactic categories, how words are combined to make phrases, and how phrases are combined into sentences. The topics include Chomsky’s Generative Grammar, the
analysis of phrase structure, the X-bar Theory, and Movement. Students will be exposed to the syntactic patterns of English, and be required to analyze sentences in their first language in light of the analytical frameworks.
Prerequisites: ENG 111, ENG 301
ENG 409: Introduction to Semantics [3 credits]
Semantics is the study of linguistic meaning, and how human beings create meaning through language. The primary focus will be on lexical and sentential semantics. However, issues in pragmatics will also be incorporated into the course contents. The theoretical topics covered in the course are metaphor, metonymy, acquisition of concepts, and Generative Lexicon Theory. The course will also include elements of formal semantics such as truth conditional aspects, scope ambiguities, and anaphoric relations.
Prerequisites: ENG111, ENG 301
ENG 410: Introduction to Neurolinguistics [3 credits]
The course concentrates on an introductory discussion of the neural mechanisms underlying language acquisition, processing, and use. The course will demonstrate how the neurological components are associated with the human faculty of language management, and how the aberrations result in a range of language disorders or loss. Students will be introduced to a range
of competing computational models of language processing. Students will also learn about the current neuroimaging practices that play key roles in identifying the relationship between language and brain.
Prerequisites: ENG 111, ENG 301
ENG 411: Stylistics: Teaching Language Through Literature [3 credits]
This course is designed to introduce students to the basic concepts of stylistics. On completion of the course, students will know how to teach language by using different elements of any literary text. Along with selective readings from literature, students will be doing practical tasks and peer teaching throughout the semester. A series of practical tasks and peer teaching will help students
to be confident in combining literature and applied linguistics together. They will be able to make successful lesson plans for any language class they take in their future career. They will learn how to make a language class more interesting by using different literary texts.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 412: Second Phase of Modernism: Post-War Bangla Literature [3 credits]
This course will investigate some of the seminal texts by the Kollol Group and their contemporaries with the objective of mapping the trajectory of modernism in Bangla literature following the decades after the First World War with particular emphasis on movements like Existentialism, Freudianism, Realism, and Nationalism. The emergence of a new style as a reaction to the prevailing romanticism as evident in the Tagorean oeuvre will be studied in connection with the uncertainties and absurdities representative of the then contemporary sociopolitical conditions.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 414: Twentieth-Century English Literature [3 credits]
The course is divided into different periods, such as early, middle and late twentieth century. This will enable students to make their way through the difficult but exciting century that saw unprecedented changes in various fields, from literary to scientific, at a global scale. Marked by the two world wars and then the Cold War, the twentieth century was challenging for writers both at psychological and social levels. This course will address those challenges and their on-going impact, contributing to give students a comprehensive knowledge on all three mediums- prose, poetry and drama- that have been influential in the last century.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 415: Twentieth Century Poetry [3 credits]
This course will be a thorough investigation into the conceptual developments, aesthetic practices and historical context which marks the perplexing yet popular term “Modernism.” Both as a standalone and a part of the literature map, the course stimulates advanced level engagement with contemporary poetry. This will enable students to make their way through the difficult but
exciting century that saw unprecedented changes in various fields, from literary to scientific, at a global scale. Marked by the two world wars and then the Cold War, the twentieth century was challenging for writers both at psychological and social levels. This course will address those challenges and their on-going impact, contributing to give students a comprehensive knowledge
on particularly The course work will delve into the significance that the death of traditional literary practices and birth of new ones, had on the thinkers, writers and poets of the late nineteenth and mid twentieth century. In doing so, the course will analyse the rich body of twentieth century poetry within the framework of relevant literary movements such as Modernism, Existentialism, Imagism, Psychoanalysis, Beat and the Harlem Renaissance. Works of Willliam Butler Yeats, Wystan Hugh Auden, Ezra Pound, Wilfred Owen, Thomas Stern Eliot, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Hilda Doolittle, Wallace Stevens, Dylan Thomas, Ted Hughes, Langston Hughes, Seamus Heaney and Allen Ginsberg will be the focus of this course.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 416: World Epics [3 credits]
Modern English Literature in particular and other national literatures in general are highly indebted to the great ancient epics. Different genres of literature, themes in literary works, and techniques of representation are directly borrowed from these great classics. These classics are, beyond their aesthetic excellence, chronicles of unrecorded history and culture, sources of humanity’s perceptions of its place in the universe. Through the assigned readings, thus, this course will not only take the students on a journey into the past but also help them understand how this past shaped our present, impacted our worldviews, and influenced civilizational pursuits. This course will explore the world of classical epics by taking an intensive look at Iliad, Aenid, Shahnama, Arabian Nights, Shakuntala, and Mahabharata in order to situate their role in ancient as well as modern literature and art.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 422: The Urban Novel [3 credits]
The representation of the city in novels from several literatures will be the focus of this course. The course explores such topics as the semiotics of the city, the 'painting of modern life,' the commodity culture of cities, politics and anarchy, plots and urban detection, the city and the construction of identity, transgression in gender and class, the poetics of the city and the tensions between modernism and postmodernism.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 425: Language Delay and Disorders in Children [3 credits]
The course is an overview of a range of developmental difficulties of children such as Specific Language Impairment, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Down’s Syndrome, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder that adversely affect language development. This course will also expose the students to the nature of language produced by the affected population with specific emphasis
on phonology, morphology, and syntax. The course will include a visit to a special school where students will interact with children with language difficulties to have a preliminary experience of working with children with language impairment.
Prerequisites: ENG 111, ENG 301
ENG 434: Materials Design [3 credits]
The course aims at familiarising the students with the underlying theories and principles of English language teaching materials. Equipped with the requisite knowledge and sufficient exposure to a wide array of various audio-visual-textual materials drawn from multiple sources, for example, magazines, newspaper articles, periodicals, etc., students will be able to develop a critical perspective toward them. Moreover, they will be given hands-on training on how to adopt, adapt, and develop materials for teaching ESL/EFL classes. As a part of their major assignments, students will be provided with a teaching context and asked to identify the curricular goals and course objectives, and based on their findings; they will develop a course unit outline (materials portfolio), prepare lesson plans, and create materials for those
lessons.
Prerequisites: ENG 301, ENG 334
ENG 437: Testing and Evaluation [3 credits]
This course aims to introduce students with underlying principles of language testing and assessment. Students will learn developing and critiquing language tests and classrooms test materials. Students will also learn how to critically evaluate and validate various language tests. They will also be introduced with recent development in language testing research. Although the
focus of this course is particularly on language testing and assessment, the theories and methods discussed in this course can be applicable in other contexts as well.
Prerequisites: ENG 301, ENG 334
ENG 438: Syllabus Design [3 credits]
This course introduces students to a needs-based, learner-centered approach to designing ELT curricula, courses, and materials. You will work together step by step towards developing a syllabus: they have to choose a language course and write a description of the students followed by needs analysis. Based on the results of the needs analysis, you have to design a syllabus and
based on a chosen section of a syllabus, you have to come up with a lesson plan followed by designing of materials. Finally, students will formally “pitch” the proposal in an in-class presentation preparing them for the real world of curriculum development.
Prerequisites: ENG 301, ENG 334
ENG 439: Teaching Practicum [3 credits]
This course offers students the knowledge of various language teaching techniques. The students will get the opportunity to observe actual classes of different levels by visiting various schools in the city. In order to evaluate those classes critically, students will be given sufficient theoretical knowledge through class lectures and discussions, which they can apply during their
own teaching sessions as well.
Prerequisites: ENG 301, ENG 334
ENG 440: English for the Print Media [3 credits]
This course will provide students with the English Language skills necessary to work or write for newspapers, journals and other print media. The course will give them an understanding of how a newspaper or journal is organized and introduce them to the different aspects of journalistic writing. The course content will include news reporting, feature writing, literary-critical analysis, news commentary, op-eds and post-editorials, planning a story, including cross-checking and editing.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 456: Marginality and Transgression in Victorian Literature [3 credits]
A re-reading of Victorian texts with the aim of foregrounding concerns that High Victorianism tried to suppress or marginalize: poverty, sexuality, revolution, criminality, and aestheticism. The course will look at the ways in which the anarchic and scandalous jostling against the 'respectable' affect both the forms and themes of Victorian literature. The semiotics of transgression, the discourses of sexuality, the fascination of the other, the connections of the upper classes with the underworld: these are some of the issues to be explored.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 458: Women of Talents [3 credits]
Identification and definition of 'female aesthetics' and associated ethics. Issues include: why/where/how women write; how women writers represent acts of imagination, its processes, practices, and psychology; how women novelists assume or question the existence of a 'female tradition'; how the resistance of female aesthetic to closure, to 'forms' and 'framing', both conforms to and challenges post-modernist thought; how women writers' 'special relationship to language' problematizes the function and status of figurative language; how the body and the 'literal' inform 'female' discourse; and how a theory of a special kind of 'embodiment' or 'incarnation' of the word comes to factor importantly in articulations of such an aesthetic. Readings from novels by Cisneros, Drabble, Kingston, Kincaid, Lessing, Morrison, Woolf, short-stories by multi-cultural writers in English, essays about writing by women and appropriate theory will form part of this course.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 460: Moderns and Contemporaries [3 credits]
A study of the moment of divergence in high culture which occurred around 1900, and which is marked in literature by the disagreement between 'contemporaries', who appealed to the main body of cultured taste by continuing the novelistic tradition of realism, and the 'moderns', who rejected realism in the name of art. Moderns include such writers as James, Woolf, Lawrence and Conrad; contemporaries include John Galsworthy, H. G. Wells, Arnold Bennett, and Rudyard Kipling.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 461: Modern Drama [3 credits]
By the time students reach this course, they have considerable knowledge on the long tradition of British dramas from the 16th to 19th century. This course will address the recent and on-going histories of British dramas, contributing to give students a comprehensive knowledge on the tradition of British, in some cases European, dramas, and enhance their capacity to situate dramas as an important literary genre in relation to fiction and poetry. This course takes on many key elements of the 20th century modernism as a literary movement. It offers students to contextualize their knowledge on key philosophical debates of the 20th century and post-war Europe. Both as a standalone and a part of the literature map, the course stimulates advanced level engagement with contemporary literature and drama.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 462: Post-Colonial Literary Theory [3 credits]
Based on a reading of Edward Said's Orientalism (1978) students will have to read relevant works by Michel Foucault, Antonio Gramsci and Jacques Derrida. Contemporary developments in post-colonial theory, including the works of GayatriSpivak, HomiBhabha and Aijaz Ahmad will form an intrinsic part of this course.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 463: Theories of Fiction [3 credits]
A survey of the essentials and the novel in literary theory, focusing on the models presented in semiotics, structuralism and post-structuralism, psychoanalysis and new criticism. We study Bakhtin, Kristeva, Deleuze and Guattari, Marguerite Duras, Lacan, Anne Carson and Barthes, Balzac, Gayatri Spivak, Derrida and many others.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 464: Post-Colonial Literature [3 credits]
Intensive Study of Texts by Nirad Chaudhuri, Narayan, Achebe, Garcia Marquez, Soyinka, Walcott, Rushdie, Gordimer, Desai.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 465: Translation Studies [3 credits]
This course will introduce students to the core conceptual trends and areas of translation studies. Students will study the theory and phenomena of this new academic discipline to re-view translation not as “a poor copy of the original” but as “an act of invention that produces a new original in another language.” Hence, students will that translation has a language of its own
other than the language on which it basis its re-creation. Students will also learn that an act of translation has immense power to subvert and deconstruct hegemonic ideologies of the dominant discourses related to the domination, marginalization and subjection of a certain class and race in society by another.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 466: Dissertation [6 credits]
Students will write a dissertation in consultation with a supervisor on any area in their specialized stream. At the end of the semester students will be required to make a satisfactory presentation to a board of examiners. For students taking options B or C, this can be a semester-long internship, followed by a report, which must be acceptable to a board of examiners.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 480: Independent Reading Course [3 credits]
Designed for the advanced-level students, this course aims to offer an opportunity to gather indepth knowledge in a selected theme within English studies. The course is a reading-intensive course that will prepare the students with the knowledge and skills they need to pursue an academic path, e.g. writing a thesis, conducting academic research, pursuing a career in
academia. The theme of the course will be decided on the basis of the interest of the students and the instructor. The class activities will include presentations and discussions on academic readings. Students will be required to complete the readings in advance, so that the classroom discussions can have critical components that build on the texts. In the latter half of the semester, students will be required to individually conduct independent research, and write academic papers on specific issues related to the theme of the course. The course readings on the selected theme will be prepared by the teacher/ facilitator, and shared
with the students in advance.
Prerequisite: ENG 301
ENG 490: Seminar Course [3 credits]
This course is offered to students in the senior year. Special courses will be offered either by a senior full-time member of the faculty or by visiting faculty on a special topic. The course will consist of 3-hour long extensive seminars on various sub-topics each week. This course requires intensive study and a close working relationship between student and teacher.
Prerequisite: ENG 301