Research

• The faculty members of the department have pursued research in traditional British, American and World literatures. Independent and joint studies have been conducted in the field of Renaissance and Early Modern literature, 17th century, 19th century, Modern, Postmodern, Postcolonial literature and critical theory. Twentieth century and 19th century American and Indian English Writings have always been the department’s research forte. The teachers of the department have also supervised research in these fields, the outcome of which has been published in the form of books and in national and international journals.
• During the first phase of the department’s SAP, DRS programme two major publications were made with Orient Blackswan. Survival and Other Stories was published in 2012 and Towards Social Change: Essays in Dalit Literature in 2013. This was the first literary representation of Bengali Dalit writing in the history of publication in English. In collaboration with Bhasha, Baroda, the department has completed work on two volumes, one each in Bengali and English, under the national project, People’s Linguistic Survey of India. The volumes are currently in press with Orient Blackswan. Several other departments of the varsity have benefited from the outcome of this research.
• Emphasis in the second phase will be laid on linguistic analysis, standardization and creation of phonemic alphabets of oral tribal languages, namely, Kurmali, Dhimal, Birhor, Kheria Shabar, Toto and Borok. Attempts are being made to adopt orthographic alphabets of devanagari to write the oral texts. Diacritical modifications and generations of new fonts are underway. This will help preserve the indigenous languages and make them translatable into English. Lexicons of the said languages are conceived. Collaborations with (a) The Centre for Neural and Cognitive Sciences, Hyderabad Central University (b) School for Linguistics and Phonetics, EFL-University, Hyderabad and (c) CIIL, Mysore and (d) Departments of Linguistics and Indo-Pacific Languages of the University of Hawaii, Manoa, USA are planned.
• Collection of dalit and tribal religious and cultural images and creation of a digital archive based on scholarly research on archetypal symbols of the world is also contemplated.
• Space sharing on a joint institutional and tribal basis is pioneered by the department’s outreach programme. The researchers and learners will go out to tribal habitats to effect what can be called methodical estrangement. Members from the tribes will be taught the use of modern gadgets and print language for translation of their own texts into printable versions by themselves. They will be taught fast online communication with the department. In turn, representatives from tribal communities will enjoy cultural and academic hospitality in the department’s state-of-the-art language laboratory. They will also bring their performances for exhibition at the DRS organized study circles.