Evolution of the Department of English, Christ University

The department of English has existed since the time of inception of Christ College in 1969. The department was set up with six teachers. In the initial years, the number of students was very limited. The entire campus had about 1000 students. The Pre-University and degree programmes subsisted together. General English and Additional English existed from the beginning. Additional English was introduced mainly to help foreign students who were mainly from the Gulf countries. The BA programme was not really sought after.

Originally, optional English was available for  PSEng; Psychology, Sociology and English which was an aided combination. Most of the students were from Christian convents from Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram. Since the college was under Bangalore University, the syllabus was highly traditional and consisted of mostly genre based divisions. Unaided combinations were introduced in 1991- Journalism, Psychology and English (JPE) and in 1996- Functional English, English and Psychology.

After the college received autonomy in 2006, 20% freedom was given for syllabus and evaluation change. For General English, a textbook was compiled by the teachers of the department, titled 'Perspectives'. Complete freedom on curriculum development was given since 2008 after the deemed University status was conferred. 'Mindscapes' and 'Life Scripts' were later publications for the General English course. Until autonomy, the annual system of evaluation was practised. After 2008, semester system was introduced. MA, M.Phil and PhD, were all introduced after 2008. New papers like Popular Culture, Ecological Discourse, Film Studies, English Language Teaching, Gender Studies, Theatre Studies, Translation Studies, etc, were introduced thereafter.

Now the department has newer combinations and the numbers of students have also significantly increased. Unlike the earlier ratio of 6 teachers and about 30 students, today there are more than 25 teachers in the department and close to 100 students in each of the department's programmes.

Currently, the department aims to promote an intellectual climate through artistic creation, critical mediation and innovative ideation in a  culture of  reciprocal transformation thus empowering the individual to read  oneself , the social context and the imagined.

 

By

Bhavani S (1444101)

&

Pritha Biswas (1444102)