About us
The Department of English was established with the inception of Banaras Hindu University in 1916. After establishment, it was shaped and nurtured by a galaxy of scholars namely Joygopal Banerjee, Ronald Nixon, P. Sheshadry, U.C. Nag and others. Its scholastic tradition was further strengthened by C. N Menon, B.L. Sahney. R.A. Diwedi, N.M. Kulkarni, V. Rai. T.N. Singh, U.P. Mathur, S. M. Pandeya, G.B. Mohan Thampi, and R.R. Mehrotra, who had distinguished themselves in various spheres of English studies.
Today, the Department has privilege of being one of the largest Departments of English in the country. It has a distinct position of its own in the University also due to its rich academic, research and cosmopolitan character. The Department offers Undergraduate, Post Graduate and Doctoral programs in English Literature. It also offers Certificate and Diploma Courses besides its focus on other practical implications of the subject. At the postgraduate level in the final semester, optional papers such as Indian Literature in Translation, New Literatures in English, Women Writing, and European Literature in Translation are offered to the students. 'Indian Literature in English and Post Colonial Literatures' are the focal areas of research and training. Children Literature, Film Studies, Indian Aesthetics, Bhasha Literatures are other thrust areas in research.
The Department has been publishing regularly a research journal called Research and Criticism since 1965. With a view to foster literary aesthetics and creativity among students, the Department also publishes a students’ journal The Volcano. Besides organizing National and International Conferences on regular basis, the Department organizes two annual memorial lectures - The Purohit Swami and Vikramaditya Rai Memorial Lectures. Eminent scholars namely Amalendu Bose, C D Narsimaiah, S. Nagrajan, M K Naik, Sarup singh, R W Desai, G N Devy, Vinod Sena, R. K. Kaul, A. A. Ansari, Meenakshi Mukherjee, M.L. Raina, Harish Trivedi, K Satchidanandan and Amitava Roy have been invited in past years to deliver these memorial lectures on various aspects of English literature.
The Department has been fortunate in terms of the visits of creative writers and academic stalwarts of international repute. Some prominent figures among them include I. A. Richards, Somerset Maugham, Stephen Spender, William Golding, Angus Wilson, Margaret Drabble, Norman Holand, Bruce King, Michel Pousse, Michael Franklin Antony Johae and Sheila T. Cavanagh. Among Indian creative writers who have delivered lectures in the Department, mention maybe made of Raja Rao, Mulk Raj Anand, Nissim Ezekiel, Jayanta Mahapatra, Keki N. Daruwalla, Chaman Nahal, Shiv K. Kumar, Amitav Ghosh, Saros Cowasjee, U. R. Ananthamurthy, A. K Mehrotra, Eunice D'Souza, Mahesh Dattani, Githa Hariharan and Amish Tripathi.