Skip to main content

The Department of English: A Real Space for Intellectual and Political Empowerment


                   

                            
                     The Department of English of the University of Kelaniya is a stalwart space of knowledge, guidance and empowerment amid politically turbulent and ideologically stagnant realities that seek to centralize intellect and politics to the dominant ideologies. Situated within an integrated ambience of critical postmodernist and feminist sentiments, the Department of English enables self-empowerment and refinement of its students through the variety of courses offered through its General and Honours degree programmes. These courses prepare students for a life of critical engagement with the world around them while encouraging self-reflexivity and self-actualization. Courses in the first year of the General Degree programme offer compulsory modules such as Writing Skills, Critical Thinking and Poetry and the Human Condition, and the Honours Degree programme delves deeper into the field of literary studies through modules such as Literary Praxis, Critical Praxis and Social Documentation and the Novel, providing sufficient knowledge and adequate preparation for students in terms of the foundational skills such as close, attentive reading of texts comprising resistant and compliant approaches, formal, academic and cohesive  writing and, above all, the development of their critical thinking and analytical skills for a comprehensive appreciation and interpretation of texts and the English language. With the foundations thus laid, the programme shifts, in the succeeding years to incorporate complex texts addressing broader as well as specific themes and issues of different literary contexts, crucial theoretical frameworks underlying texts and the politics of knowledge, representation and power in texts in history and in the contemporary times. The programmes equip students with the necessary social, political and cultural knowledge and active awareness of ideologies and realities to face and challenge the world successfully. Critical literary, political and pedagogical frameworks taught by the Department offer a wealth of knowledge for students to analyse different ideologies and political issues  pertaining to both  the academic realms and larger society, providing students the means necessary to speak and act against discrimination, inequality, oppression and injustice as active proponents of freedom.

                      The Department of English empowers students intellectually by enabling them to emerge into a critical consciousness through the carefully selected literary  works of canonical authors such as Shakespeare, Chaucer, Blake, Wordsworth, Elliot, Byron and Austen to more contemporary national and international authors such as Martin Wickramasinghe,  Sonali Deraniyagala, Gabriel Marquez, Bapsi Sidhwa and Michael Ondatjee among multiple others, offering a well-rounded view of literature and author positionalities throughout the ages. Vital theories of literary criticism of Formalism, Structuralism, Poststructuralism, Modernism, Postmodernism and Deconstruction and political theories such as Feminism and Marxism provide an astounding scope of knowledge to identify with, analyse and deconstruct the ideological and political constructs of their social realties to better inform and shape the personal realities and aspirations of its students. Modules such as Literary Pedagogy, teaches and informs student and teachers of the restrictive ideological and oppressive constraints of the traditional education systems and the limitations of traditional learning-teaching methods in order to create awareness on the rights of the students to know and recreate in a system of mutual learning and sharing of knowledge; Language Pedagogy equips students with the necessary knowledge and skills needed to identify learner needs and teaching strategies in language learning, enabling students aspiring to be teachers to enrich their worldviews and scope for planning. 

              Through its system of dialogical education, healthy and interactive teacher-student relationships and constant feedback and monitoring of student progress, the Department helps students grow not only academically but also as individuals through the unwavering system of support built to ensure the quality of the students’ experience throughout university and in their private lives as well. This inclusive, interactive and equal-opportunity system of learning and teaching aids students to mould their interpersonal skills and soft skills as well where students are taught not merely the techniques to read, interpret and write but also effective communication, empathy, flexibility, and attitudes for shaping its students not only as academically well-versed individual but as individuals and human beings with a conscious will who hold the confidence and sophistication to speak their minds when and where necessary against all forms of injustice, enriching their own lives and those of others they encounter. A strict code of mutual respect, kindness, generosity and tolerance enable students to develop into wholesome individuals with a  greater sense of  social responsibility, openness and ability to act in any situation.

Nuzla Niyas

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Blink": Over the years

  The history of English literary magazines in Sri Lanka dates back to the 1940s, a period in which the English graduates were highly encouraged by the English departments of the local universities to showcase their critical thinking skills and creativity. Harvest (1945-46), Symposium (1948-50), Points of view (1952) and Community (1954-58/ 1962-63) were founded by the graduates in English who were eager to contribute to the field of English language and literature. However, the socio-political context of the country after eight years of gaining independence (1956s) saw certain upheavals in the paradigm of English education in Sri Lanka, both in the school and university levels. Professor D.C.R.A. Goonetilleke writes to the Encyclopaedia of Postcolonial Literatures in English (2005) that “English was displaced from its pre-eminent position as the official language and as the medium of instruction in schools and universities”. Therefore, the literary journals which gained pub...
Post a Comment
Read more
  A Meeting At Crossroads: When English Meets The Interdisciplinary. There is a strange and narrow-minded misconception that the bearer of an English degree steps out of University with the knowledge and abilities privy to exceptional writers and English speakers. The bearer of an English degree supposedly walks down a path that sharply forks into either ‘teacher’ or ‘writer’, and some others question English students as to what they can do at all with their degree. As an English undergraduate, the number of times I have been asked these questions are too many, and I grit my teeth and bite my tongue instead of replying with the saying, ‘ignorance is bliss’! I believe that this misconception stems from the widely accepted belief that an English degree comprises of courses that delve only into language, grammar, writing, literature and poetry, which cannot hold a candle (or even the very idea of one), to the STEM subjects. Of course this is part and parcel of the package that is an E...
Post a Comment
Read more
  T aking a Stand: The Department of English and it's Anti -Ragging Policy  W hite hairbands, rubber slippers, plastic files, thel bedima, bucket eka, card eka—the undergraduates of the University of Kelaniya are all too familiar with the notorious practices and terminology that constitute the so-called process of initiating new undergraduates into the university. This practice of initiation, in other words, is known as ragging.  Ragging is considered to be a rite of passage for all new entrants; it is seen to be a practice that fosters close bonds between first-year undergraduates and their seniors; and an intrinsic facet of the subculture within institutions for higher education—by some. The Department of English of the University of Kelaniya, however, does not see eye to eye with such claimants. It recognizes ragging as an ‘act which causes or is likely to cause physical or psychological injury, fear or mental pain in an undergraduate’ (University of Colombo) (n.d), an...
Post a Comment
Read more