About the Department
The history of the Department of English aligns with the year Cotton College was founded in 1901. Prof F. W. Sudmersen, the Founder Principal of Cotton College, started the Department, with the aim to cater to the need for English studies in the region. The Department offered the undergraduate course in English till the year 1913-1914 when the institute was affiliated to Calcutta University. The postgraduate course in English began in the year 1914, and this marked the beginning of postgraduate education in Assam. In 1922 Prof. R. C. Goffin launched The Cotton College Magazine that was later rechristened as Cottonian. The magazine continues to be an intellectually vibrant mouthpiece for young minds to voice their thoughts on matters of socio-cultural political and literary...
read more →Head of the Department
- Prof. Rakhee Kalita Moral
- hodenglish@cottonuniversity.ac.in
- 9871928887
HoD’s Address
It is a rare privilege to belong to what is regarded as one of the pioneer departments of the erstwhile Cotton College, established in 1901, which coincides with the year of its inception. Holding the mantle from F. W. Sudmersen, the founder principal of this centennial institution, several giants and literary stalwarts have led the department from its glorious beginnings through the pressures of a historical watershed in the first half of the twentieth century to its evolvement as a fine centre for literary and creative excellence. Bearing testimony to this is the gallery of pundits and poets who have all helped erect the foundations of a strong, diverse and progressive space for the teaching and learning of English studies in the region’s premier college. A hundred years later, in the twenty-first century, the department is witness to a significant change in academic thrusts with the rise of the New and Critical Humanities in the university and scholarly pursuit of a range of explorations in the literary and cultural domains, the emergence of environmental and medical humanities and a host of interests that have also simultaneously sprung out of a robust and rich body of Anglophone and regional literatures from India’s northeast. The faculty with a wide range of expertise and qualifications provide an unarguably fertile context for the study of and research in English literature from this institution and hold out promise for new and exciting horizons in the future.
Rakhee Kalita Moral, PhD
Professor and Head, Department of English
Cotton University