The Department of English is one of the
six Departments with which the University started functioning in 1957. It was
initiated by Prof. S. P. Mishra under the nomenclature, “Department of English
and Modern European Languages” on August 28, 1957. The teaching was started
on September 2, 1957 with twenty two students in the first batch of M.A. class.
Sri S.P. Mishra, Dr. R. N. Verma, Sri Thakur Guru Pd. Srivastava and Dr. R.S.
Verma - All Assistant Professor were the other members on the staff. The strength
of the staff rose to fourteen with the joining of ten more teachers as Assistant
Professors. Sri S. P. Mishra was elevated to Professorship in 1962.
The
teachers of the Department, who chose to work at other universities at different
stages or left include, Sri G. N. Singh who resigned as he was in poor health,
Dr. R. S. Verma who joined as Professor & Head, Department of English, Bihar
University, Muzaffarpur, Sri O. P. Malviya who joined Allahabad University as
Lecturer in English, Sri Thakur Guru Prasad Srivastava who joined Shivaji University,
Kolhapur, as Reader & Head and subsequently worked as Professor & Head
of the Department of English, Garhwal University, Srinagar, U. P., Sri K. G. Srivastava
who joined the University of Allahabad as Reader in English and is now Professor,
Sri J. N. Pandey who went back to Lucknow University as Lecturer in English and
Dr. P. K. Pandey who joined Kashividyapeeth as lecturer in English and is now
Professor of English B. H. U., Varanasi. Besides Sri K. K. Mishra chose to become
a P.C.S. Officer, Sri R. S. Lal joined the State Government service as S. D. M.,
Sri B. M. Singh decided to work as the first Principal of the local Digvijay Nath
P. G. College. Three women teachers, who resigned and preferred family life are
Smt. Uma Sanyal, Smt. Arunima Bhargawa and Smt. Rashmi Dixit, K. Ruchira Mukherjee
resigned to assume her duties as an I. A. S. Officer. Sri K. K. Sinha who came
from the local Engineering College, died prematurely. Dr. R. N. Verma and Sri
J. S. Biswas retired in 1972 Sri S. Z. Abidi went to Lucknow as Lecturer in English
and Miss Sumitra Varun joined I.A.S. Allied.
Dr. R. S. Verma, Shri Pratap
Singh and Sri K. G. Srivastava were selected by the British Council for higher
studies in 1960, 1961 and 1972, respectively. They were sent to the U. K. and
placed at the University of Birmingham, Edinburgh and Glasgow respectively to
work on the research projects.
The Department acquired a new dimension
when the U.S. Educational Foundation in India offered to send American Professor
to introduce and organize studies in American Literature. Dr. H. W. Reminger was
the first Professor to be associated with the Department in 1961 for a period
of one year; Dr. (Miss) M. D. Lewis, succeeded him the following year. Their two-year
stay in succession promoted the study of American Literature in the Department.
Subsequently, Sri Thakur Guru Prasad Srivastava went to the U. S. for training
in the fields of American Literature so that the Department may have its own expert
for teaching in this area.
The Department made further progress when the
Russian Embassy, through contract with the Government of India and U. G. C. made
it possible for us to have Russian teachers to open Certificate and Diploma courses
in Russian. Unfortunately, the Department has no teaching in Russian at present.
Arrangement for the teaching in French language up to Diploma level as also made
in 1972 when Mr. B. Labnique was appointed lecturer in French. Since he was unable
to extend his stay here after the expiry of one academic session, the work could
not be taken up by anybody else. But efforts are being made to restart the courses
in French language.
There is an Audio-Visual Lab in the Department. But
it is in a very poor shape at present. Some of the instruments have outrun their
lives. However, we try to show films of English plays, English novels and some
longer poems with the help of the Publicity Department of the Government. Also
there are a few language records; the students are given opportunities to listen
to them with a view to improving their pronunciation.
Dr. Pratap Singh
took over as Head of Department on July 2, 1981 and worked till March 1988. After
retirement he worked as Chairman, Higher Education Commission, U. P. and subsequently
did teaching for six years in foreign universities. Professor Narsingh Srivastava
worked as Head of Department from March 1988 to June 1993. Prof. J. P. Tripathi
and Prof. S. C. Bose headed the Department from July, 1993 to March 1995 and March,
1995 January, 1998 respectively. Prof. Gangeshwar Rai has been working as the
Head of the Department since January 24, 1998.
The Department organized
a two-day workshop on “The Techniques of Teaching Literature” on April
10-11, 1983 in collaboration with the British Council, New Delhi under the guidance
of Professor John Greenwood, University of Manchester (English). A two-day seminar
on T. S. Eliot Centenary Celebration was organized in 1988. In 1992 we organized
another two-day seminar on Indian Sensibility in Indian Writing in English”.
Five U.G.C. sponsored Refresher Courses in collaboration with Academic Staff College,
Gorakhpur were organized in recent years. The First Refresher Course in English
was held on “The Modern Writer and His World” on December 3-23, 1998.
The thrust area of the Second Refresher Course was “Post War English Literature”
which was held from March 22 to April 11, 1999 and the Third Refresher Course
in English on “Nineteenth Century Writer and His world” was held from
July 20 to August 9, 2000. The Refresher Course in English on “Nineteenth
Century Writer and His world : Victorians” was held from November 21 to December
11, 2001. The fifth and last Refresher course was organized from November 20 to
December 10, 2002 and the thrust area was ‘The English Literature of the
Renaissance and the Reformation. Participants from U. P., Bihar, M. P., Maharashtra,
Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu joined these courses and renowned Professors like Prof.
K. Kapur (J.N.U.), Prof. R. S. Pathak (Sagar), Professor O. P. Mathur, Professor
R. S. Sharma, Professor A. K. Tripathi (B.H.U.), Professor Rajnath, Professor
A. N. Dwivedi (Allahabad), Professor B. D. Sharma (Nainital) delivered lectures
as resource persons. ‘A National Seminar on contemporary British and American
Fiction’ was organized on December, 2001. A book titled ‘Papers on Contemporary
British and American Fiction’ .2001. A book titled ‘Papers on Contemporary
British and American Fiction’ containing the papers of the seminar was subsequently
edited and published. We organized National Seminar on ‘Postcolonial Literature
and Theory’ in March 2003.
