History

Year of Establishment : Self-Financed Two Years M.A. Course- 2005, Full-Fledged Department- 2015

History of the department : The establishment of the Department of Comparative Indian Language and Literature (CILL), University of Calcutta, is the fruition of a legacy initiated by Sir Asutosh Mookerjee, who was the main force behind the Department of Indian Languages started at 1919 at this university. Mookerjee envisioned the study of multiple literatures in colonial India as a means of bridging the differences among languages, identities, people.

As a continuation of that legacy, the self-financed CILL course was introduced in 2005, commemorating the glorious 150 years of the University, with Bengali as the nodal department. The Hon'ble Government of West Bengal and the University of Calcutta have converted the self-financed course in CILL into a full-fledged department of the University in 2015. Here, Bengali serves as the basis of comparison; other Indian literatures composed in many languages, from ancient to contemporary times, being studied in comparison to that.

Research

Thrust areas in teaching and research of the academic department:

• Ancient Indian Literature, Contemporary Indian Literature, Indian Aesthetic, Bhakti Movement, Modern Literary Theory and Criticism, Translation Studies, Comparative Literature, Partition Literature

Research Project:

• South-East Asia : Colony and Beyond (Reading Critical Geo-Politics and Bengali Polysystem)
• UGC-UPE-II Project
• Principal Investigator : Dr. Mrinmoy Pramanick
• Project Fellows : - Aratrika Ganguly, Arpita Dey & Pratim Das
• Project Budget : 29, 45, 600/

Major activities :

• An Interaction with Professor France Bhattacharya, organized by Department of Comparative Indian Language and Literature and M.Phil. course, Department of English, University of Calcutta, at Room No. 28, 2nd Floor, Asutosh Building, at 2:30 P.M. on 8TH December, 2015.
• Interactive Session with Prof. Jiang Jingkui, Head of the Department of Hindi, Peking University, China, in Collaboration with Sahitya Akademi on 4th January, 2016 at 2:30 P.M. at the Chandramukhi Kadambini Sabhagriha, Central Library.
• A talk on Trailakyanath and 19th Century Comic Tradition by Prof. Nandini Bhattacharya, 28th July, 2016
• A half-day Seminar on Uttar-Purba Bharater Sahitya O Sanskriti by Soumen Sen and Mukti Choudhury, on 22nd September, 2016

Contact

Campus : College Street

Address for communication : University of Calcutta, 87/1 College Street, Kolkata-700 073