Department Of English

A continued commitment to the imparting of education and training of national standard, and persistence in striving for excellence in an effort to reach our ultimate goal of meeting international standards in English Studies in Sardar Patel University.

History / Papers pushed / PhD

We would like to revisit two interesting developments leading to the establishment of Sardar Patel University in 1955 and the Department of English by it in 1958 in its proper historical perspective. The Mahagujarat Movement was at its peak in mid-1950s.

The bifurcation of the then Bombay Province into Gujarat and Maharashtra had begun to appear to be a distinct possibility. Our leaders had the foresight to envision that the state of Gujarat, as and when it was carved out of the province, would need new institutions of higher learning and new universities to take care of its needs.
Driven by their missionary zeal, they responded to this new felt need by taking the initiative of establishing Sardar Patel University as a rural-based university in 1955. One of the immediate felt needs was an institution of higher education, a Postgraduate Department of English, which would impart instruction and training in English not only as a specialisation but also as an important component of the curricula.

This was based on an indigenous model of education, in anticipation of and in preparation for fulfilling the needs of the region for English Studies as it were before the founding of the state of Gujarat on 1 May 1960.
We do feel grateful and extremely honoured in having had the privilege of being among the first few Departments to be established by our University in its early years of existence. It was our good fortune that the Department was blessed with three scholar-administrators as Heads in the first 50 of its more than 53 years of existence. These men of great vision helped build the Department and brought it to the enviable position it occupies today not only within the state but also in the western region and at the national level.

Research & Development / Topic

Research Activities

The Department has been involved in research activities related to Literary Theory, Indian English Literature, Indian Literatures in English Translation, Translation Studies, Gender Studies, and Applied Linguistics including English Language Teaching.
Teachers in the Department have completed four major and minor projects funded by the UGC, New Delhi:

=> Dr JH Khan, ‘The Testing of English at the Collegiate and University Levels in Gujarat’ (Minor Research Project): 1985-87.
=> Dr JH Khan, ‘Designing Courses and Materials for the Teaching of Compulsory English at the Undergraduate Level in Gujarat’ (Minor Research Project): 1990-92.
=> Dr DS Mishra, ‘Dynamics of Social Change in Post-1970 Novels in Indian Languages (Western-region)’ (Major Research Project): 2001-04.
=> Mr PB Raval, ‘Negotiating Identities: Globalisation, Culture, and History’ (Minor Research Project): 2009-11.

Distinguished Alumni

The Alumni Association of the Department of English, Sardar Patel University (AADESPU) aims at fostering friendly ties with its alumni spread across the State of Gujarat, other States of India, and in countries abroad. It seeks to serve the following objectives:
=> to organise reunions of the alumni of the Department of English,
=> to host academic events like seminars, symposia, workshops, conferences etc,
=> to organise cultural events as a part of the reunions,
=> to create an atmosphere of participation, meaningful exchange of ideas, and to provide a platform to the alumni to contribute to and in return benefit from the academic resources available in the Department, and
=> to organise special events and raise funds for use in the development of the Department.