The School of Languages and Literature/Humanities

The School pursues rigorous, cutting-edge research into foundational questions that constitute the Humanities as a repository of human knowledge. The School is dedicated to rethinking and reframing the Humanities, interconnections between language, literature, culture, translation, and life in Asian and non-Asian contexts. It aims to train and equip the students with the ability to access the available resources in their native languages, gain an appreciative and insightful understanding of the perspectives of the literary and cultural contexts of the target language and provide translation from a foreign language into English with sincerity and sensitivity.

The School recognizes translation as an important intellectual and creative activity and seeks to create a capability hub in this area through an innovative course of study. It has been following a multidisciplinary critical inquiry and its research interests are exploratory in nature and are constantly evolving.

Research and teaching at the School encompass the range of representational forms which find expression in prose, poetry, drama, performance, film, and the social and cultural fields within which such expressions take their forms. Expertise in the School ranges from the study of the oldest manuscripts to the most recent 21st century literature across the continents including Asia, Europe, Africa, the Americas, and Australia.

The domains of faculty expertise include Literary, Linguistic, and Cultural Studies, World Literature, Indian Poetics, Aesthetics, Visual Studies, Digital Humanities, Translation Studies, Performance Traditions from South and Southeast Asia.

Keeping in line with the University’s ancient predecessor Nalanda Mahavihara and the ethos of the University at large, the School seeks to cultivate and sustain an extremely diverse, cosmopolitan, and lively intellectual atmosphere.

Mission:

The School offers programmes with an aim to promote an understanding of texts and practices in their cultural/historical contexts and of the singular nature of diverse reflective and literary traditions.

Strategic Priorities:

• Innovative curriculum covering a wide range of linguistic and literary traditions.
• Open to students from any stream who are passionate about language, literature and culture.
• Interdisciplinary orientation, with a wide range of specialized electives to choose from.
• World literature in focus: explores literary, cultural, and translation traditions across the world.
• Focus on the unique nature of diverse reflective and literary traditions.
• Defining intersections among literature, culture, theory, and philosophy.
• A close engagement with the significant ancient and contemporary texts.