English is now the most dominant language in the world and there is a renewed emphasis given on the teaching and learning of English in most countries of the world, and Bangladesh is no exception. People from all walks of life acknowledge the need to deepen their knowledge of English and to raise their proficiency in using it for a wide range of purposes. The Department of English and Humanities at BRAC University has been concentrating on a course of studies that combines literature teaching with language, as well as media and cultural studies, in its undergraduate program. The same approach is followed in our MA program, thus distinguishing it from other MA programs offered elsewhere. BRAC University MA in English program has two concentrations: a) Literature, and b) ELT and Applied Linguistics. The program is based on the conviction that students will benefit from an in-depth study of many aspects of English language and literature.
The curriculum of the MA in English (Literature and ELT & Applied Linguistics) is designed for persons holding a bachelor’s degree in English or a related field who wish to enhance their skills and knowledge of English in a specialized stream whether it is language or literature. The program seeks to prepare students to engage in the process of critical thinking and to carry out research and inquiry into their chosen area of interest. The MA program also aims to provide a bridge between undergraduate studies and the demanding dissertation work required for the MPhil or PhD. It will also add on some necessary courses to supplement or to enhance the literary competence of students from related disciplines, who might have limited background in literary or language study at the undergraduate level.
The M.A. in English programme at BRAC University offers graduates with the research skills that help them to complete any research project independently. The students are encouraged to author academic papers from their assignments and final course projects that they may present in local and international conferences. They are also inspired to publish academic papers in various journals early on in their student life.
Some of the graduates have found employment in areas as diverse as:
• Teaching English at schools, colleges or universities
• News Editing
• Digital media based content creation
• Working in the development sector
• Freelance content editing
• Professional proofreading
• Professional interpreting
“It was probably 2005; I took a Post Colonial course, especially designed by our beloved Prof. Firdous Azim, For a beginner, the course was very challenging. If someone missed a class, that person would be lost the next day. During that course, I was staging a play titled – ‘Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne’. I was so involved in rehearsing for the play that I intentionally missed a class and spent the entire day at the rehearsal. The next day when I entered the English department, I was praying not to face Firdous Ma’m, but alas! She was standing right before me and was so upset that she scolded me like a schoolboy. No one at the department could remember when they last saw her get so distraught.
I learned she had postponed and rescheduled the last class for next week, so I didn’t miss anything. I felt so guilty that I didn’t know what to do. How can a person be so pure, caring, and dedicated? This is how the English Department of BRAC University was. Every single faculty was my mentor, guide, and friend!
By the way, if you are wondering, I finally managed an ‘A’ in that course, and Firdous Ma’m was the happiest person that day!”
Asif Iftekhar Piyash
CEO & Head of Creative & Strategy
Brand Soup Advertising Ltd.
Batch: 2002
YEAR |
SEMESTER |
RECOMMENDED COURSES |
||
1st Year |
1st Semester |
ENG 604 |
ENG 611/612/613 Or ENG 609
|
ENG 605 Or ENG 641 |
2nd Semester |
Elective Course I |
Elective Course II
|
Elective Course III |
|
2nd Year |
3rd Semester |
Elective Course IV |
Elective Course V
|
Elective Course VI |
4th Semester |
Elective Course VII
|
ENG 698: Thesis |
ENG 603: TEACHING READING AND WRITING SKILLS
Reading and writing are two important language skills of learning any language. This course introduces the future English language teachers to some techniques of teaching these two skills to students. During the first half of the course, the student will be able to understand the features of proficient reading and writing skills. The latter half of the course will show them how to implement various teaching techniques that may help students achieve good reading and writing skills.
This course equips future English language teachers with the knowledge and skills of teaching various strategies of reading and writing skills. The students will be able to apply their knowledge into practical teaching in the future.
ENG 604: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This course introduces research methodology in English studies with the aim to familiarize students with conducting research. It will be a preparatory course for students undertaking research for their thesis which is mandatory in fulfilling the MA in English. The course examines current research paradigms, principles of research design, data collection instruments, commonly used research methods for small-scale studies, processes involved in data analysis, and modes of presenting research findings.
Graduate students are introduced to a variety of scholarly and professional skills through this course. It has been designed to help students develop skills intrinsic to scholarly and academic pursuits. The course will familiarize students with writing applications for academic grant or conducting advanced archival research so as to guide them through useful practices such as writing academic proposals and presenting at conferences.
ENG 605: CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE IN ENGLISH
The course focusses on a variety of contemporary writings in English from across the world in all the major genres. The idea is to read works of literature across genres and also to acquaint students with recent English works that have come out of Africa, Asia and Anglo-America. Students will learn to think and discuss to what extent contemporary writing in English contributes to but is also shaped by socio-political changes since the Second World War.
The course begins with the close reading of the Japanese novella A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro that explores the nuances of post-war psychosis for people who survived the war in Japan. The story centres on the emotional upheavals of an aged woman who has flashbacks of a past that comes to haunt her in the wake of her adolescent daughter’s suicide. Strong women characters figure prominently in the works of the Ghanian author Ama Ata Aidoo whose writings in ‘No Sweetness Here’ tell the story contemporary African women torn between modern and traditional values in the face of situations and mishaps that involve allegiance to tribal values. Mishaps of an erratic and tragi-comic nature govern the storyline of Samuel Beckett’s classic play Waiting for Godot where the characters weigh in on an irrational post-War reality littered with the ghosts of the past. In City Psalms, Benjamin Zephaniah experiments with dub-rhyme to explore the ghosts of the Caribbean region’s colonial past in contemporary Britain. The course concludes with Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger that looks into the post-independent, contemporary ‘Indian dream’ of the impoverished and marginalized sectors of modern Indian society for wealth, fame and power.
ENG 609: ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE
This course is designed to give students an overview of the basic concepts of language and
linguistics. The course begins with a discussion on the linguistic system in general, and how
humans and animals use it. In the following classes, students will learn the structure of human
language in terms of sounds (phonology and phonetics), words (morphology), sentences
(syntax) and meaning (semantics and pragmatics). This is a basic linguistics course recommended (not mandatory) for all MA students majoring in linguistics and ELT because this
course is designed to prepare students with the theoretical and technical foundations required
for the more advanced courses in the stream.
ENG 611: BASIC READINGS IN FEMINIST LITERARY CRITICISM
This course will take students through the main writings of western literary tradition from the 'first' to the 'second' wave. As part of the reading of the 'third' wave of feminist literary criticism, which critiques the 'eurocentricism' of the previous writers, the course will concentrate on writing from South Asia. Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Kate Millett will form the first part of this course. The second part will look at the writings of Elaine Showalter, Ellen Moers and Tillie Olsen. The third part of the course will look at Cora Kaplan, Gayatri Spivak and selected writings by Terry Lovell, Toril Moi and Mary Jacobus. The course will end by concentrating on the Indian subcontinent looking at the critical writings of Susie Tharu, Kumkum Sangari, Niaz Zaman and Firdous Azim.
This course will begin with a survey of the writings of first and second wave feminism, and dwell on length on postmodern and post-colonial feminist approaches, or what can loosely be classified as third wave feminism. Hence we will begin by briefly going through basic feminist texts such as Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (1929) or Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s Sultana’s Dream (1905). We will go on to look (again briefly) at Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics (1970) and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963). This will bring us to the main focus of the course, which will look at how feminist literary theory has taken on board issues of race, class, nation and ethnicity. Transnational feminist issues will be brought to the forefront with writings by Chandra Talpate Mohanty or Indrepal Grewal and the focus will be brought on inter-sectionality. The new debates on gender and identity will be introduced through the writing of Judith Butler, and contemporary representations of the fluidity of gender, including the concept of third gender. Postmodernist conceptualisations of the gender issue will be highlighted in this section. South Asian feminists had entered this debate on the particularities of women’s struggles and feminist writing in the 1980’s through two major interventions: Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid’s edited volume Recasting Women; Essays in Colonial History (1989) and Susie K. Tharu and K/ Lalita’s 2-volume compendium of women’s writing entitled Women Writing in India: 5000 BC to the present (1993). Firdous Azim and Niaz Zaman’s edited volume of essays Infinite Variety: Women in Society and Literature (1994) will help students locate these debates in their own contexts.
ENG 612: BASIC READINGS IN POSTCOLONIAL LITERARY CRITICISM
Beginning from the writings of Edward Said, the course will look at the later developments of postcolonial theory as represented by Homi Bhabha and Gayatri Spivak. Once the field is laid out, we will look at writers from Africa and the Caribbean, such as Franz Fanon, Leopold Senghor or Ngugi wa Thiongo to widen the scope of postcolonial responses to literature. Contemporary postcolonial critics such as Ania Loomba, Robert Young and Alta Aima will be included as part of the reading list.
This course will take us through the basic concerns of post-colonial literary criticism. It will start by looking at the basic issue of language, which in the bifurcated terrain of post-colonial societies, emerges as a subject of debate and crisis. We will look at language issues as they pertain directly to us in Bangladesh, and look at wider language debates as we go through the African debate on language, Caribbean view on language and so on. This course will then embark on a reading of basic post-colonial criticism in the writings of Edward Said, Homi Bhabha and Gyatri Spivak. The course will comprise readings of literary texts ranging from the 19th century to contemporary times, and will also involve a viewing of films. The second half of the course will look at issues of post-colonial nation-making and writing. Feminist issues will also be looked at during this stage. A combination of literary and critical writings will form the main reading materials of this section of the course.
ENG 613: BASIC READINGS IN POSTMODERN LITERARY CRITICISM
This course introduces students to the basic concepts and themes of postmodernism. Students will read seminal essays that shaped this movement and critically examine the literary texts that manifest the stylistic hallmarks and thematic preoccupations of this movement. While the reading of fiction will concentrate on Anglo-American texts, writers of other languages will also be included. To appreciate the widespread appeal of postmodernism in contemporary culture, the course looks beyond literary texts to include other cultural texts such as film, music and architecture.
Understanding of literature gets more solidified when students are exposed to the works beyond the canonical works of English literature. This course introduces a range of texts from across the world, texts that represent diverse cultural and national issues.
ENG 614: WORLD LITERATURE IN TRANSLATION
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.
ENG 615: NATIONALISM AND LITERATURE
Fredric Jameson has called 'third world' literatures a process of nation-making. Aijaz Ahmed has critiqued this concept, seeing it as yet another example of Eurocentric ways of looking at 'other' cultures. This course will look at 'founding' texts from 'third world' nations, to see to what extent they are a narration of nation making. Examples of readings include the novels of Bankim and Tagore, or the new African writings by Ngugi wa Thiongo or Chinua Achebe.
Identity in the 21st century is inseparable from nationality: every single person by default belongs to at least one nation state. This belonging, or sense of belonging, to a nation is often solidified and at times subverted by culture, literature, and politics. Although nation state is now the universally accepted political form of governing people, nationalism as a concept was a European construct. History of its formation parallels the history of Colonization, Capitalism, and European ethnocentrism. As an ideology, it has been exported to Asia and Africa and the people had been trained in its tenets through maps and metaphors, museums and music, violence and sacrifice. Surprisingly, literature played a remarkable role in dispersing nationalist ideas and sentiments. It also has been instrumental in exposing the emptiness of such ideas and sentiments. Keeping these dual functions of literature in concern, this course is designed to engage the students in exploring different factors that made nationalism a universal concept. Literature on this topic is quite extensive: the course will focus on some key theorists and require students to critically analyze some texts dealing with nationalism, border, ethnicity, and the like.
ENG 616: CLASSICAL LITERARY THEORIES OF THE EASTERN AND WESTERN TRADITIONS
The course introduces classical literary theory from four ancient civilizations divided into two concentrations, the first is grouped under Vedic Indian aesthetics and the art of rhetoric from Hellenistic Greece, a period that spans, broadly speaking, from the 1st Millennium BC to the 3rd century BC. The second concentration explores the poetic traditions extant in the pre-Islamic Arabian Peninsula and the Persianate, Sunni Muslim dynasty of the Ghaznavid Empire (977-1186).
From the Indian Vedic tradition, we look at the place of the rasa (literally, ‘nectar’, implying sentiment, emotion or essence) within the Natyasastra to understand how Vedic dramatic art evokes a theoretical understanding of the rasas purported to awaken in the spectator expressions of ultimate reality and higher consciousness. A higher consciousness of the world of forms (as opposed to the world of physical objects) is the purview of much of Socratic and Platonic thinking from ancient Greece that developed, by the end of the Hellenistic period (33 BC) the beginnings of a keen understanding of the hermeneutics of poetry and philosophy and the difference, thereof, between these. We will read a selection of materials from Plato’s Republic to delineate the place of poetry and philosophy within the Athenian polity. This reading will be supplemented by additional documents on Athenian socio-cultural makeup and ideals of the state by poets, lawmakers, and rhetoricians.
Poets figure prominently in the Arabian Peninsula, an arid terrain surrounded by major civilizations in the north by Byzantium and the Sassanid Empire in the northeast, with cosmopolitan Jewish colonies flourishing in the west and the south. Poets from all corners of the Peninsula gathered at Medina during the four sacred months of pilgrimage to ‘arbiter’ and recite poetry in the fashion of the qasidah, consisting of three sections, each leading to the next, as pearls strung together in a necklace (called a simt). The winner would have his celebrated qasidah (called al-Muallaqat) ‘suspended’ or hung on the Ka’bah in honour of their metrical, musical, and moral merit. The most celebrated of these were seven poets: Imru' al-Qays, Tarafah, Zuhayr, Labld, 'Amr b. Kulthum, Antarah, al-Harith. These verses speak of inter-tribal codes of honour, ideas of gallantry to women, chivalry, and warfare. Some verses (by Imru’ al Qays) even echo Greek philosophy and cultural expressions. The Peninsula had a few women poets of high ranking such as Al-Khansa' bint 'Amr b. al-Sharld of Banu Sulaym, revered for her elegiac compositions (marthiyya). In the year 629, she met Mohammad and converted to Islam. The prophet is said to have wept for Al-Khansa, his favourite poet when she passed away in 646.
Three hundred years later, in the Khorasan region of north-eastern Iran, the scholar Ferdowsi composed a series of striking elegies and epic verses for his magnum opus the Shahnameh (977) or the ‘Book of Kings’ a work comprising of 50,000 couplets detailing the ancient history of Iran until the Muslim conquest of 700 AD. We will read a selection of stories (such as ‘Sohrab and Rustom’) from the Shahnameh presented by Ferdowsi to Mahmud of Ghazni that speak of the glories of ancient Persia and its principles of moral and imperialistic orders.
ENG 617: LITERATURE AND POPULAR MEDIA
This course undertakes the textual, thematic, historical, and theoretical readings of a selection of texts in relation to questions of performance and adaptation by dealing with folk, theatre, television, film, Postcolonial, Postmodern, feminist and mainstream adaptations of different literary works. It requires the student to analyze, interpret, and appreciate literature and diverse forms of adaptations in popular media as artistic and cultural representation. Individual reception of different media adaptations of literary texts will be discussed during the class sessions. This course will offer multimedia demonstration of the adaptations of different literary texts to promote students’ aesthetic appreciation.
A mark of continued relevance and popularity of literature is the constant remaking and adaptations of various literary texts in a variety of media. The course will provide a thorough understanding of social and cultural interests invested in literature.
ENG 618: TRACING A FEMINIST TRADITION: 18TH AND 19TH CENTURY WOMEN'S WRITING
Is there a feminist or woman's tradition' This tradition can be traced from the 18th century writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, to the rise of the Gothic in the 18th century, the great realist novels of the 19th century including writers like Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot. This course will look at this body of writing critically to question the notion of a 'tradition' of writing, and to see how the 19th century 'woman question' is reflected in its literature.
This course aims to provide an opportunity for the students to inquire about the history and roots of women’s tradition and feminist culture. Tracing back to the 18th-century writings of Mary Wollstonecraft to the rise of Gothic Literature, we move to the most significant writings of 19th-century writers, including Charlotte Bronte, Christina Rossetti, and Emily Brontë. Reflecting on the essential works of Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain and Sojourner Truth, the students can critically question the trace of the “tradition” of writing and decipher the notion of “women question” in the 19 th century in its literature.
ENG 620: TRANSNATIONAL FEMINISM: READING LITERATURE INTER-CULTURALLY
The main objective of this course is to acquaint students with the universal nature of feminism. This course focuses on issues relating to women's diversity through different genres of literature by women writers. It includes texts written from and addressing a variety of viewpoints, identity and experiences, which are shaped not only by societal definitions of gender, but also by constructions of race, sexuality and class. Beginning with the Introduction of Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan's Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Practices, this course critically examines the tradition in women's writing, deconstructs the pervasive images of women in literature, and analyses the way in which women use language to define their experiences. A variety of works by Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani, Egyptian, Latin American, African, British, and American women will be studied, including novels like Sultana's Dream, Map of Love, Ice-Candy-Man, Joys of Motherhood, The House of Spirits, Sexing the Cherry, Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Raven a play by Caryl Churchill; poetry by Kamala Das, Sappho, Adrienne Rich, Sylvia Plath; and essays by Arundhati Roy.
The course will take us through the concept of transgressing, going beyond as well as between. We will look at the intersection between feminism and literature, spanning across, going across boundaries and what that may mean for women. As the course looks at feminist studies transnationally, it will be focused on the conversations between women as well as differences between women. Between women does not translate into a global sisterhood, but points to both commonalities, differences and most crucially hierarchies between women. That is why we will start with the hierarchies that were set up during the global era, and see how these devolve right to the present. Other texts will look at the idea of many hegemonies and its dichotomy between women.
ENG 622: READING ENGLISH LITERATURE POST COLONIALLY: FROM SHAKESPEARE TO DEFOE
Postcolonial re-readings of literature proceed through a re-examination of the English literary canon. This course will look at early English literature, from the plays of William Shakespeare to the novels of Daniel Defoe to see how colonial themes and depictions of the ‘Other’ occur in the English writing of the period of exploration and the beginnings of Empire.
The course is text-oriented, but we shall look at the texts from a historical and political context. We shall discuss questions of race, class, gender, history, language and identity as presented in the novels, plays and poems to be read in class.
ENG 623: POSTCOLONIALISM AND LITERATURE: THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
This course will involve a re-reading of the nineteenth-century novel post-colonially. Students are expected to read novelists from Charlotte Bronte of the early nineteenth century to Rudyard Kipling of the late nineteenth century. This course will also look at the response from the colonized world, and will read the English writings of the Bengal Renaissance, with authors such as Michael Madhusudan Dutt or Bankim Chandra Chatterjee to see how nineteenth-century colonialism influenced the growth and development of literature.
This course will take us back to the origins of post-colonial literary criticism, and show how colonialism brought in its wake a plethora of literary texts, which both celebrate and critically examine Europe’s place in the world. Links between literature and the colonial enterprise will be examined through a close reading of literary texts, with a combination of essays that throw light on some of these issues.The stress in this course will be on an examination of power. We will look at power in its creative aspects, as the literary does not provide an example of a direct manifestation of power, but power as it seeps into our imaginations and thoughts, and creates worlds through which we examine political processes. Some of the theoretical concerns addressed in our introductory courses will be illustrated through our selected texts.
ENG 624: POSTCOLONIALISM AND THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD: READING "OTHER" ENGLISHES
English as a world language has implications for its literature. English writing from other sites, such as the Caribbean, the African continent and South Asia are witness to this international status of English. From its initial nomenclature as Commonwealth writing to its present day status as postcolonial writing in English, this body of texts represents a rich tapestry of writing.
This course will introduce us to English writing from all over the world, and will critically examine whether the phenomenon of a global English is a post-colonial hangover, or whether this literature constitutes a new way of expression and existing in the world. Literature in English originates in diverse regions, and we will read novels and poetry from the Indian subcontinent, Africa, the Caribbean and what has come to be known as the settler colonies, such as Canada and Australia.
ENG 626: POSTMODERNIST AMERICAN LITERATURE: FROM THE 1960'S TO THE PRESENT
The course will begin by tracing the history of postmodernism since the end of World War II, and place the emergence of this new cultural trend in the context of the disillusionment and exhaustion brought on by the war, particularly the use of atomic weapons to decimate cities and human habitations. The course will provide an overview of the developments brought on by the rise of visual culture, commoditization, lifestyle changes, and the Internet. The course will deal with the significant literary texts written by the American writers since 1960s and beyond in the light of the various theories of postmodernism that have gained wide currency.
The texts selected have been already labeled “postmodern” by a consensus of critics, scholars and general readers. The term “postmodern” cuts across such diverse genres as architecture and music, film and literature- even law- making it highly contested and slippery. Thus this course aims to look at various attempts to define “postmodernity” (as general social condition) and “postmodernism” (as aesthetic ideology and cultural style), recognizing that these definitions, while sometimes overlapping, are also at times contradictory. We can clarify this range of definitions, but we cannot eliminate the contradictions, since what is at stake in these debates is nothing less than the attempt to understand a cultural term that represents new ways of looking at the world around us.
The texts and theories will help students to explore the specific, varied qualities of American fiction and the specific, varied qualities of postmodern lives. The course will examine the uneven effects of postmodernity and postmodernism as shaped by differences in race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, gender and region/nation. The course begins with an outline of contemporary philosophical and sociological approaches to the postmodern age with emphasis on the theories developed by Jean François Lyotard, Frederic Jameson and especially Jean Baudrillard.
The course is dedicated to examine the classification of the actual literary works according to the acquired theoretical frameworks. A broad aim of this course is dedicated to exploring some aspects of American fiction after postmodernism, particularly in relation to transformation in American culture since 1960s. Besides fiction, it will also look at some poetry from the Beat Generation and contemporary poets from America. However, the course is not limited to fiction and poetry as students are encouraged to connect the ideas and theories of postmodernism with other social and cultural aspects of American lives such as films, music, art, etc.
ENG 627: POST MODERNIST BRITISH LITERATURE: FROM THE 1980'S TO THE PRESENT
The course will begin by tracing the history of postmodernism since the end of World War II, and place the emergence of this new cultural trend in the context of the disillusionment and exhaustion brought on by the war, particularly the use of atomic weapons to decimate cities and human habitations. The course will provide an overview of the developments brought on by the rise of visual culture, commoditization, lifestyle changes, and the Internet. The course will deal with the significant literary texts written by the British writers since 1980s and beyond in the light of the various theories of postmodernism that have gained wide currency.
The course is aimed at understanding postmodernism as a cultural turn that cuts across a range of interconnected fields including architecture, social science, education, fashion, and design, film and television, the new media and literature. There will be an attempt to understand its cultural, aesthetic, historical, narratological, and theoretical orientations and study how these reflected in literary and cultural texts. The focus will be on literary texts but other texts and contexts of postmodernism, such as advertisements, film and social media will also be accommodated for a wider understanding of the term.
ENG 629: POSTMODERNISM AND THE VISUAL MEDIA
Postmodern era, among other things is marked by the primacy of the visual. Its expressions in all disciplines challenge the notion of the world as a written text that dominated so much intellectual discussion in the wake of linguistics-based movements such as structuralism and poststructuralism. Through viewing, close reading, interpreting, and discussing a wide range of visual media, including films, television shows, paintings, photography, billboard, graffiti and advertisement images among others, we will explore a variety of critical approaches to understand this new reality.
We will follow the history of the postmodern debates and explore how the web of ideas known as postmodernism came to be applied to everything from geography to politics to -- of course -- media. This will explain the relationship between evolving digital technologies and existing media, its predominant characteristics and help explore whether digital visual forms mark a break with traditional emphases on story, representation, meaning and reading. Equal focus will be given on the examination of the individual media texts in connection to the postmodern condition and its aesthetics – intertextuality, self-reflexive, parody, pastiche, bricolage, simulacra, irony, anti-realist, narrative fragmentation, ambiguity to name a few. Readings will include but not be limited to Walter Benjamin, Fredrick Jameson, Jean Baudrillard, Francois Lyotard, Michel Foucault among others.
ENG 641: METHODS AND TECHNIQUES IN ELT
This course will take students through the history of English language teaching from grammar translation to communicative language teaching and other current communicative approaches. Students will have the chance to discuss and practice a range of different teaching methods and techniques. The emphasis of the course will be on the principles and techniques of teaching the four skills, as well as grammar and vocabulary.
This course is an overview of the major language teaching methods including the structural methods to the more communicative ones. The course introduces the postgraduate level students of English studies with the various trends in language teaching. As a good number of the students of this course are likely to engage themselves in teaching English at different levels, the course provides an essential exposure they may need in their professional lives. Also, students from the applied linguistics and language teaching stream will find this course a useful exposition to the stream, which can be a foundation for the upcoming courses in materials designing, classroom teaching, and language testing.
ENG 642: ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE: THEORY AND PRACTICE
The course gives an overview of how second language acquisition has been explained within a range of theoretical framework over the years. The key concepts include the debates between nature and nurture, learning and acquisition, and natural and instructed language acquisition. The course also emphasises on the various teaching ‘approaches’ that emerged based on the theoretical assumptions about language teaching and learning.
ENG 643: SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
The course will be focusing on theories and techniques of analysing various language usage in a social context. It will also explore the theories relevant to acquisition of language by a child. The students will be having the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of theories while drafting the final research paper for the course.
This course introduces students to key themes in Sociolinguistics and Psycholinguistics. The study of Sociolinguistics is set in the context of general development of Linguistics and as such link with the courses on general linguistics and multilingualism. Following an introduction to the scope of Sociolinguistics, major themes are studied such as language variation and change, the cultural influences on language in context of spoken language relating to politeness and choice of appropriate utterances, and issues of language planning. Also, the course will be teaching the theories relevant to how a child acquires language.
ENG 645: DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
This course introduces the techniques of text analysis using speech act theory, deictic expressions, lexical choices, cooperative principles and other visual and textual elements. Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis model will be used in analyzing data. This course introduces students to key concepts of Discourse Analysis and Pragmatics. The course focuses on how language is used in different contexts and disciplines. The students will be introduced to various linguistic models for analyzing a body of text. They will be analyzing some real-life conversations as well that would allow them to apply the theories of discourse analysis and pragmatics practically. Such practical application will be helpful for them to analyze conversations in real-life contexts.
ENG 646: COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING
The course will equip students with the tools to integrate computer technology appropriately into language teaching and learning. It will provide an overview of different types of programs and approaches to using CALL software in the language classroom. Basic training in computer technology, and software related to language teaching and learning will be an integral part of the course.
This course provides an overview of the current developments in integrating computer and web-based technology in language teaching. This course will also explore theoretical and practical aspects of using computer and internet-based technology in language learning and teaching. Students will learn more about technology and will be able to critically assess various technologies in specific context. Students will also explore current situation of the use of technology in teaching and learning in Bangladesh, and what steps can be taken to improve the use and integration of technology in teaching and learning in Bangladesh.
ENG 647: WORLD ENGLISHES
The course surveys the social and linguistic characteristics and roles of English in societies around the world. It will attempt to examine the differences in the status of English in different countries of the world and their sociopolitical and educational implications. Topics will include: spread of English in the world; functions and statuses of Englishes world-wide; the three varieties of English; British and American English; English in South Asia (with special emphasis on Bangladesh) and the characteristics of New Englishes. There will be opportunity to compare the different functions of English language in postcolonial nations and the extent and nature of nativized varieties, which have developed.
English is being spoken in almost all over the world by billions of people resulting in many varieties and forms. It is the language of communication among various international communities. Such widespread use and the spread of English have resulted both positive and negative consequences. English is considered as a global language and the lingua franca of the modern world, but at the same time it is also termed as a killer language. In this course some of these tensions, developments, varieties and future direction of English will be critically examined.
ENG 648: TEACHER EDUCATION
This module is designed for students to get acquainted with various issues involved in teacher education. It will include understanding of the theories and principles of teacher education, teacher education around the world, classroom observation, modes of teaching and learning, micro-teaching, counselling and feedback. A major concern of the module will be to familiarize students with current research and methodologies pertaining to teaching and learning.
The goal of Teacher Education is to prepare students for the variety of teaching situations they might encounter in their professional life. The course aims to help students learn through reflecting who they are as a teacher and the socio-cultural environment of English language teaching, and from this base, to gain practice in thinking about the wide range of pedagogical, contextual, and sociopolitical considerations and decisions that make ESL/EFL teaching a complex and situated process. Additionally, this course focuses on a review of current trends in classroom practice to provide students with practical classroom teaching tools. Course activities include lecture, exploring case studies, reviewing and analyzing actual lessons and materials, and analyzing and discussing teaching videos in order to provide students with significant time in practice as they reason through classroom issues.
ENG 649: MATERIAL DESIGN AND EVALUATION
The course will aim at developing students' understanding of the theories and principles of effective material design. It will include evaluation, selection and adaptation of existing materials. It will provide students with the tools for designing materials for the ELT curriculum. This course has been designed to prepare English language educators (present and future) to design their own course materials across the age and proficiency level of the learners. Moreover, students will be trained on how to evaluate and adapt ready-to-use English language teaching materials to tailor them to the specific needs of their students.
ENG 650: TEACHING ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES
The course discusses English for Specific Purpose as a genre in terms of its rise, evolution, significance and process. As the course progresses, students are exposed to the theories of designing an ESP syllabus, ESP materials, methodology and evaluation. Students will be guided through the process of designing an ESP course of their own which they will present at the end of the semester.
ENG 651: TESTING AND EVALUATION
Assessment is one of the significant issues in education. This course will familiarize students with the important topics in language assessment including fundamental considerations in language test design, stages of a test development, practical and ethical issues in assessment, and the impact of tests on students, teachers, curriculum, and wider society. Students will also explore recent development in the field and learn how to carry out research in the field.
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.
ENG 652: CURRICULUM AND SYLLABUS DESIGN
This course studies the background of the language syllabus design; various types of syllabi; needs analysis and the problems faced by syllabus designers. It also investigates the decision-making process that involves planning, developing, implementing, evaluating and modifying syllabi.
This course studies the background of the language syllabus design; various types of syllabi; needs analysis and the problems faced by syllabus designers. It also investigates the decision-making process that involves planning, developing, implementing, evaluating and modifying syllabi. It equips learners with both theoretical and practical knowledge of syllabus design.
ENG 653: TEACHING PRACTICUM
This course provides theoretical knowledge of classroom management and teaching four language skills to students so that they can apply the knowledge practically in real-life English classrooms.
The objective of this course is to give students some practical experience of teaching in classrooms. To fulfill this aim, peer teaching sessions and class observations have been incorporated into the course plan. 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.
ENG 671: CULTURAL AND MEDIA STUDIES
Although culture is a complex construction, created, maintained, and transformed in countless ways, the media – both traditional and new – available today remain the most powerful and prevalent generators and conveyors of cultural meaning in our contemporary society. By re-presenting the world to us in a way that emphasizes some meanings while de-emphasizing or annihilating others, the media can implicitly or explicitly provide the “resources” that help form our sense of the world and our place in it. Using a multi-faceted, and multi-disciplinary cultural studies perspective as the dominant critical lens this course interrogates the intricate relationships between media, identity, and society.
To achieve this, the course familiarises students with dominant theories - ranging from "neo-Marxist" to postmodern as well as feminists and postcolonial - around media and cultural studies. The focus on theory is complemented by its pragmatic component and thorough examination of cultural and media texts. Along with general debates in the field, the cultural politics, trends and practices of Asia, and the contemporary ‘glocal’ Bangladesh also inform the selection of topics.
ENG 698: THESIS
Students will write a dissertation in consultation with a supervisor on any area in their specialized stream. They will formulate a research question of relevance within their stream, choose a methodology that can be used to find answers to the research question, apply theories and concepts to analyse and answer the research question and write a lengthy and convincing argument. At the end of the semester, they will be required to make a satisfactory presentation on their research to a board of examiners. Students in the Media and Cultural Studies stream have the option to do a semester-long internship and write a report which must be acceptable to a board of examiners.
Student Tutors
Support from student tutors for the 100-level courses is available to students who need to improve their writing skills. These mentors equip students with the skills to properly write, format, cite and organize a good research paper. Tutors are available at set times during the week.
Resonance
A bilingual, creative writing journal, run and organized by students of the department under the supervision of faculty advisors. It is open to all BRAC University students who wish to get their creative work published. The soft copy of the journal can be accessed from the department’s website.
Student Activity
Performance of plays, recitations and other types of staged productions, in addition to the exhibition of art and other creative work produced by students, regular seminars, workshops conferences and guest lectures are held under the aegis of the ENH Seminar Series.