Eng.(M.A.), Sem-IV - Syllabus | BURDWAN UNIVERSITY

Eng.(M.A.), Semester IV – Syllabus | Burdwan University

👉 Paper 401: Major Elective (Any one of the following options)

👉 401.i: Indian English Literature

The course introduces students to a body of literature that has now assumed canonicity, and that perhaps most aptly exemplifies the hybrid nature of the operations of English in India today. Coming into existence with the introduction of English as the medium of instruction in India, pace the Anglicist victory in the great Indian education debate, Indian English is now acknowledged as a distinct language with a distinct tradition of literature. The course charts the growth, development and new directions of this vibrant body of literature.

Unit I (Any two plays and three poets)

Nissim Ezekiel: “Hymns in Darkness”, “A Morning Walk”;

A. K. Ramanujan: “One More After Reading Homer”, “Elements of Composition”;

JayantaMahapatra: “Bare Face”, “Dawn at Puri”;

Shiv K. Kumar: “Trapfalls in the Sky”, “Pilgrimage”;

Eunice De Souza: “The Road,” “Outside Jaisalmir”,

Ranjit Hoskote: “Ghalib in the Winter of the Great Revolt,” “Colours for a Landscape Held Captive”

Asif Currimbhoy: Inquilab,

Mahesh Dattani: Dance Like a Man/ On a Muggy Night in Mumbai,

ManjulaPadmanabhan: Lights Out/ Harvest

Unit II (Any three)

Mulk Raj Anand: Coolie,

R. K. Narayan: The Man-Eater of Malgudi,

Raja Rao: Kanthapura/Serpent and the Rope,

Anita Desai: Cry, the Peacock/Clear Light of Day,

Amitav Ghosh: Calcutta Chromosomes/The Glass Palace;

Shashi Deshpande: The Country of Deceit,

Vikram Seth: The Golden Gate

👉 401 .ii: American Literature

American literature offers a diversity that is reflective of its cultural ethos. The texts have been selected with the objective to make the students aware of the nation’s history, politics, and culture which shape its literature. The course traces the historical and aesthetic evolution of American Literature.

Unit I (Any two plays and three poets)

Arthur Miller: The Crucible,

Tennesse Williams: A Streetcar Named Desire,

Eugene O’ Neill: Desire under the Elms

Walt Whitman: ‘Song of Myself’, ‘I Sing of Body Electric’;

Emily Dickinson: ‘Because I Could Not Stop for Death’, ‘I Heard A Fly Buzz’;

Sylvia Plath: ‘Daddy’, ‘Lady Lazarus’;

Allen Ginsberg: ‘Howl’;

Langston Hughes: ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’, “As I grew Older”

Unit II (Any three)

Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter,

Melville: Moby Dick,

Mark Twain: Huckleberry Finn,

Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath,

Morrison: Beloved,

Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea,

Alice Walker: The Color Purple

👉 401. iii: Australian Literature

This course proposes to study Australian literature (both white and Aboriginal) by situating it in a politico-historical context. It will also help the students understand how and why Australian literature has emerged as a significant component of postcolonial literature.

Unit I (Any two poets and two novelists)

Henry Lawson: ‘Middleton’s Roustabout’, ‘The Song of Old Joe Swallow’;

Kenneth Slessor: ‘Sensuality’, ‘Beach Burial’;

A. D. Hope: ‘Australia’, ‘Faustus’;

Judith Wright: ‘The Company of Lovers’, ‘Our Love is so Natural’;

Peter Porter: ‘River Run’, ‘River Quatrains’;

Les Murray: ‘A New England Farm, August 1914’, ‘The Wilderness’

Patrick White: Voss,

Peter Carey: True Adventures of the Kelly Gang,

David Malouf: AnImaginary Life,

Peter Goldsworthy: Three Dog Night,

David Williamson: Don’s Party

Unit II (Any two poets and two authors)

Oodgeroo: ‘We Are Going’, ‘The Dawn is at Hand’;

Jack Davis: ‘The First-born’, ‘A Conversation Between Two Worms in a Cemetery’;

Kevin Gilbert: ‘Shame’, “On Our Black ‘Radicals’ in Government & Semi-Government Jobs”,

Kerry-Reed Gilbert: ‘My Life, Black Life’, ‘My Totem’;

Anita Heiss: ‘Apologies’, ‘My Other’

Robert J. Merritt: The Cake Man,

Jack Davis: No Sugar

Oodgeroo: Selections from Stradbroke Dreamtime

Sally Morgan: My Place,

Jackie Huggins: Auntie Rita,

Anita Heiss: Am I Black Enough for You?

Alexis Wright: Carpentaria

👉 402: Major Elective (Any one of the following options)

👉 402. i: Translation Studies

This course introduces students to the emergent discipline of Translation Studies and charts the development of perceptions regarding the translation act (and the translator) as slavish, passive, mechanical and inferior to translation as active intervention and dynamic recasting. The course is practical in nature in that it demands students translate a given text employing the theories they have imbibed.

(Unit I) Translation: Definitions, Historiography

i) Translation studies in the Anglo-American Context

a) The Augustans:-Dryden, Pope;

b) The Victorians-Edwin Arnold/Mathew Arnold;

c) Modern, Contemporary;

ii)Translation in the colonial Indian context:

a)Translating Epics

b) Translating novels

Unit II (Translation Theories)

Linguistic School-Equivalence, machine Translation, Cultural translation-

Translation as afterlife of a text, The role of the Translator-invisibility to creative intervention, Translation and Post colonialism, Translation and Gender, The Poly-systemic school, Translation and Cannibalism, Translation and Comparative Literature, Translation as Nation Building

👉 402. ii: Literature and Films

This course intends to explore the interface of the creative agencies of film and literature. Literature opens up to diverse possibilities of adaptation and interpretation. The transformation of literary texts into film texts promises challenging and interesting discursive paradigms. The course includes canonical (literary and filmic) as well as popular texts.

(Unit I) Film Theories:

Word-Image liaison, Meaning of Signs, Theories of Adaptation and Appropriation, Realist and Formalist Approaches: Politics of Representations, Critical Inputs after 1968, Birth of the Postcolonia

Unit II (Any three)

Emma, Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh);

PatherPanchali (Ray);

Charulata (Ray),

Throne of Blood (Kurosowa),

Great Expectations(David Lean),

Gone with the Wind;

Meghe Dhaka Tara,

Gupi Gayen Bagha Bayen;

Umrao Jaan;

Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone,

The Kite Runner,

Brick Lane,

Midnight’s Children,

Devdas (Sanjay Leela Bhansali)

👉 402. iii: African Literature

Unit I: (Any three novelists)

Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart / No Longer at Ease;

NgugiwaThiong’o: Petals of Blood / Wizard of the Crow;

J. M. Coetzee: Disgrace / Waiting for the Barbarians;

Olive Schreiner: Story of an African Farm, Nadine Gordimer The Conservationist /Burger’s Daughter

Buchi Emecheta: Joys of Motherhood,

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Purple Hibiscus / Half of a Yellow Sun

Unit II: (Any two playwrights, one poet and one short story writer)

Wole Soyinka: Death and the King’s Horseman / The Lion and the Jewel,

Reza de Wet: Crossing / Concealment,

Athol Fugard: “Master Harold”…and the Boys / The Road to Mecca

Selected poems of Ben Okri: “An African Elegy”,

Gabriel Okara: “The Call of the River Nun”,

Wole Soyinka: “Dedication” &

Ama Ata Aido: “For Bessie Head”

Selected short stories of Chinua Achebe: “The Madman”,

Nadine Gordimer: “Amnesty”,

Steve Chimombo: “The Rubbish Dump”,

Ben Okri: “Converging City”

👉 Paper 403: Major Elective (Any one of the following options)

👉 403.i: Literature of South Asian Diaspora

Unit-I (History of South Asian Diaspora Movements, Theories of Diaspora and two novelists)

History of South Asian Diaspora Movements, Theories of Diaspora

V.S. Naipual:

A House for MrBiswas/Half A Life,

Salman Rushdie:

Haroun and the Sea of Stories/Shame,

Bharati Mukherjee:

Jasmine/Desirable Daughters,

JhumpaLahiri:

The Lowland/Selections from Interpreter of Maladies,

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni:

Sister of My Heart / One Amazing Thing,

Kunal Basu:

Racists/Selections from The Japanese Wife,

Kiran Desai:

The Inheritance of Loss

Unit-II (Any two novelists and two poets)

Bapsi Sidhwa: Ice Candy Man/ Water: A Novel,

M.G. Vasanji: The Gunny Sack/Amriika,

Hanif Kureishi: My Beautiful Launderette/The Buddha of Suburbia,

Monica Ali: Brick Lane/ In theKitchen,

Michael Ondaatje: The English Patient/The Cat’s Table,

Romesh Gunesekera: Reef/ Heaven’s Edge,

Kamila Shamsie : Kartography

Meena Alexander: “Art of Pariahs”, “Elegy for My Father”;

Agha Shahid Ali: “The Correspondent,” “After the August Wedding in Lahore, Pakistan,”

Uma Parameswaran: “This Land Whereon I Stand”, from Kavya Bharati 17 (2005): 3-10);

Imtiaz Dharkar:“Purdah 2,” “These are the Times We Live in 1”

👉 403.ii: Folklore Studies

This course proposes to map the development of folklorists as a subject and ground the students into different theories of folklore. It also aims at studying folktales, fairy tales, folk music, folk dance, folk theater, urban and cyber legends with a particular focus on Bengali lore, songs and tales.

Unit I

Folkloristics: Evolution and Growth; History of Folklore Studies:

Grimm Brothers,

Kaarle Krohne,

Mary Alicia Owen,

Stith Thompson, Vladimir Propp,

Folklore scholars from the Prague School

Psychoanalytic Approach to Folklore,

Feminist Approach to Folklore,

Monogenesis and Polygenesis Theory,

Finnish Method,

Solar-Mythology Theory,

Contextual Theory,

Functionalism Theory,

Performance Theory

Field Methods and Studies:

Statement and Analysis of the Problem;

Pre-field Preparation;

Methods of Data Collection:

Interview method,

Observation method,

Questionnaires and Schedule,

Indexing and Classification,

Audio-Visual methods;

Processing and Digitization of material;

Report Writing

(Unit II) Tales: folktale, fairy tale, trickster tale, numbskull tale

Folk Poetry and Folk Songs: Composition, rhetoric, prosody, versification, tune, melody, rhythm, harmony; Folk Epic

Proverb and Riddle;

Folk and Colloquial Speech: slang, creolization, tongue-twister.

Urban Legends: Concept and meaning, revenant narratives, ghost-lore, coke-lore, KFC, chain letters.

Computer, Cyber and Cellular Lore: Folklore of computers, blogs, face-books, riddle-joke

Folklore and its commodification, folklore and market forces, the mass consumption of folklore

Selected folktales, fairy tales and folk songs of Bengal: ThakumarJhuli, Rabindranath Tagore’s Introduction to ThakumarJhuli, Kankabati(Tr. Nandini Bhattacharya), Selections from Dinesh Chandra Sen’s The Folk Literature of Bengal, Banabibir Pala (eds Sujit Kr.Mondal), Baul songs,

Muslim marriage songs; Gajan songs, Bhadu and Tusu songs of Bankura and Purulia.

👉 403 .iii: Trauma and Literature

Human imagination seeks to represent the traumatic experiences individuals or members of a community undergo in familial, societal or national spaces. A good corpus of literary works which depict such traumatic experiences has already emerged. This course will try to understand how creative works represent individual/community trauma and its effect on the human psyche. It will also study the theoretical insights this interdisciplinary field has already developed.

Unit-I (Theories and any two texts)

Definitions; Psychology of trauma; Bio politics; Partition narratives; Holocaust narratives

Sigmund Freud:

“Mourning and Melancholia”,

Kali Tal:

Select Excerpts from Worlds of Hurt:Reading the Literature of Trauma ,

Cathy Caruth : Select Excerpts from Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative,History,

GiorgioAgamben: Homo Sacer(Selections)/State of Exception(Selections), Select Excerpts from

Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive,

Lawrence Langer : Select Excerpts from The Holocaust and the Literary Imagination, Sontag,

Susan: Regarding the Pain of Others;

Urvashi Butalia: The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India;

Jasodhara Bagchi: The Trauma and the Triumph: Gender and Partition in India.

Ritu Menon: Borders and Boundaries (Selections);

Tapan Basu, ed. Translating Partition (Selections)

Unit II (Any three)

Kenzaburo Oe: Hiroshima Notes,

Philip Gourevitch: We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda,

Franz Kafka: “In the Penal Colony”,

Jonathan Safran Foer: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,

Thomas Keneally: Schindler’s Ark,

Joy Kogawa: Obasan,

Tehmina Anam: The Golden Age,

KhaledHossain: The Kite Runner/ Thousand Splendid Sun,

Shauna Singh Baldwin: What the Body Remembers;

Alok Bhalla, ed. Selections from Stories about the Partition of India (3 vols, Selections);

Joginder Paul: Sleepwalkers,

Jyotirmoyi Ganguli: Epar Ganga Opar Ganga

👉 404: Major Elective (Any one of the following options)

👉 404.i: Gender and Literature

Unit I (Theories and any two texts)

Definitions, origins, transformation; Sexualities; Class, labour, family and gender; Religion and Gender/Education and Gender; Femininities (Movements); Masculinity studies; Lesbian, gay, transgender studies; Gender and language; Gender: Borders and boundaries (Gender in nationalist, diasporic and other transnationalist discourses); Queer studies; Obscenity, pornography, violence and gender

Simone De Beauvoir: The Second Sex (Selections),

Virginia Woolf: A Room of One’s Own (Selections),

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: : “French Feminism in an International Frame”,

Audre Lorde : “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference”,

Michel Foucault: History of Sexuality (Selections),

Steven Marcus. The Other Victorians: A Study of Sexuality,

Teresa de Lauretis: “The Technology of Gender”,

Eve Sedgewick: Between Men (Selections),

Judith Butler: Select Essays ,

Barbara Goddard: “Woman handling”, Lata Mani (select essays)

Unit II (Any three)

Therigatha (Selections), Songs of Mirabai (Selections),

Rassaundari Devi: Amar Jiban;

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain : Sultana’s Dream,

Ashapurna Devi : First Promise,

Tagore : GhareBaire/ Jogajog,

Angela Carter : Bloody Chamber and other Stories,

Margaret Atwood : The Handmaid’s Tale,

Saonli Mitra: Five Lords yet None thy Protector,

Mallicka Sengupta: Kathamanabi,

Mahesh Dattani: Dance Like a Man,

Shyam Selvadurai: Funny Boy,

Alice Walker: The Colour Purple,

Iravati Karve:Yuganta; Urmila Pawar Aidan

👉 404 .ii: Race and Caste Studies

Unit I (Theories and any three texts)

Origins and transformations; Empire and race: (South Asian and South African context); Race and caste issues in India; Racism and antisemitism: (European context); Race and Americas (Slavery); Gender, difference and identity, Ethnicity, immigration and Race: Changing boundaries and spaces, Race/Caste/ethnicity stereotypes, Beauty: New Media representations

Arthur C. Gobineau: An Essay on the Inequality of Human Races (Tr. From French);

Darwin: The Origin of Species (Selections);The History of Phrenology (The Victorian Web);

Claude Levi Strauss: Race and History (Tr. From French);

Ilbert Bill Papers; M.K. Gandhi:

Autobiography: My experiments with Truth (Tr.by Gandhi from original Gujarati)

Romila Thapar: The Aryans: Recasting Constructs;

Peter Robb: Concept of Race in South Asia;

B.R.Ambedkar:“Annihilation of Caste”;

Sarat Chandra Muktibodh: “What is Dalit Literature?”;

Sharan Kumar Limbale: “Towards Dalit Aesthetics”

Unit II (Any three)

Hanif Kureishi: The Buddha of Suburbia,