The guiding assumption of the English department at Ashoka University is that we all like to travel. Even when we are beset by pandemics, dangerous beasts, and visa problems, we are committed to exploring new worlds. Some of these worlds might be troubling, others provoke new thoughts, while still others reflect old thoughts from a different perspective. Nothing launches these journeys better than literature. Whether it is by reading books written by unfamiliar authors or thinking through the intricacies of an idea, literature challenges our minds to expand, grow, and travel. All literature involves an imaginative movement outside the bounds of the familiar.
As people invested in questions of literature, we map such movements across cultures, languages and genres ranging from novels, poetry, and drama to film and theory. To this end, literatures in translation are a vital means to collapse artificial boundaries between texts, because, ultimately, all literature is translation. Hence, courses in the English Department are not defined by periods, genres or language, but by the rich questions and conversations that exist between texts. Students should feel equally comfortable on the stage at Shakespeare’s Globe as on the streets of Satyajit Ray’s Big City. They should hear the echoes between Virginia Woolf and Ismat Chughai, and see the ancient threads that run between Ovid’s Metamorphoses, A Thousand and One Nights, and the Epic of Gilgamesh. The juxtaposition of superficially disparate texts, opens up a productive space for dialogue not only within literary studies, but also across disciplines like history, sociology, politics, psychology, economics, and even the hard sciences. It is through this dialogic engagement with difference that critical thinking becomes both possible and powerful.
The Department of English offers students an intellectually engaging and adventurous space for study, research, and pedagogic exploration. Our aim is to be globally literate while also taking cognizance of our rootedness in India. The wide range of courses offered as part of the various English programmes at Ashoka prepare the graduates for a variety of careers in higher education, the law, advertising, and any field that requires an agile mind able to traverse across borders.
The department offers a variety of undergraduate programmes for students interested in English. These programmes are designed to…
Students who take up an Advanced English Major will spend a year exploring their discipline in greater depth.…
The MA in English is committed to thinking across boundaries of genre, culture and chronology. Our coursework allows…
The Ph.D. in English at Ashoka University is designed for students who are passionate about literature as well…
Towards the end of the Young India Fellowship (YIF), students can apply for a Master’s in Liberal Arts…
The Department of English consists of expert faculty members from around the globe, dedicated to developing and teaching interdisciplinary intellectual approaches to the study of literature. Our areas of expertise include, but are not limited to, Literary Theory, Classics, Medieval and Renaissance Literature, British Literature through the ages, Indian literatures, and Digital Humanities.
Prof. Majumdar has been awarded the fellowship to support his research project – The Amateur: autodidactism and self-making in the…
From an inquisitive young reader in Calcutta to his emergence as a globally renowned academic and writer, this Ashoka Professor’s…
Madhavi Menon opens up on her just-published book “The Law of Desire” in this freewheeling interview, maintaining that the law…
Almost a century after William Faulkner rose to prominence as one of America’s greatest writers, the Nobel Laureate and twice-Pulitzer…
Johannes Burgers pens a moving portrayal of his work on Nobel Laureate American Writer William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha fictions and connects…
Professor Saikat Majumdar talks about his work on the emergence of English as an international literary language with the cultural…
Join us on Tuesday, 29 December 2020 | 6:00 - 7:00 PM
Ashoka University’s English department launches the Master of Arts (MA) in English.
February was awash with poetry and colour and song; Three remarkable poets and thinkers came to campus and took audiences…
Shakespeare's Ashes, hosted by British Council and Shakespeare Society of India, along with Ashoka University, commemorated the 400th death anniversary…
For any queries regarding English programmes, please contact:-
If you have queries specific to the English and Creative Writing interdisciplinary major, please reach out to:-