THE ENGLISH LITERARY SOCIETY

To write, and consequently to read stories, is to engage in an act of exposure. It is not without reason that civilizations rush to lay their literature as their foundation. It is through their writers that they seek to represent themselves, and give themselves a name. When a story is told it combines the seemingly irrelevant habits of a singular person with the sweeping culture of a people. This is why people see themselves more easily in R. K. Narayan’s Swami than in the vague “we” of a history book. Their deeply personal and emotional nature grants stories the ability to exist as mirrors – we are what we write, we are what we read.

This is the duty that the English Literary Society takes on: to use stories and expose man; to find ourselves in the written word, and to expand the ways in which we define ourselves.

Our annual events: Blackout poetry sessions, movie screenings, lectures, LOGOS (Annual Fest), PostScript (Annual Journal).

Blackout Poetry (15 September 2022)

In this event, students were given extracts from books. Their task was to use their creativity in crossing out words and creating poetry from what remained on the page. Nearly 30 people participated and their work was later exhibited in another event.

Talk by Dr Saugata Bhaduri (17 October 2022)

Dr Saugata Bhaduri of Jawaharlal Nehru University delivered a lecture on the use of magical realism by the novelist Salman Rushdie. Dr Bhaduri traced the history of magical realism from its early beginnings in impressionism to its flowering in Latin America. A question-and-answer session ensued.

Talk by Dr Alok Bhalla (15 November 2022)

Dr Alok Bhalla delivered a lecture titled “Partition Narratives”. He talked about Simon Weil’s philosophy and about his own experiences of the Partition while growing up in Delhi. This was followed by an interactive session between Dr Bhalla and the students.

Movie Screening (4 February 2022)

English Literary Society in collaboration with Japanese Society screened Studio Ghibli’s critically acclaimed film, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. This is in anticipation of the annual festival of the society on Climate Change Literature.

Postscript Digital Issues

Postscript, our annual magazine, also takes out a few digital issues in the odd semester. This year we released three issues, on “ Dystopian Fiction”, “Grief and Literature” and “Literature and Cinema”. We publish academic content as well as creative pieces like poems, stories and even reviews.

Reading Club Sessions

This was a new initiative starting this academic session. We hold a couple of sessions on some text every month. So far, we have had three sessions, on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Haruki Murakami’s Drive My Car and Anton Chekhov’s The Bet and Gooseberries.

Council Members (2022-2023)

President – Syed Muhammad Khalid (III B.A.English)
Vice President – Ishita Agarwal (III B.A.English)
Academic Coordinator – Yusra Basit (III B.A.English)

General Secretary – Saumya Chandra (III B.A.English)
Treasurer – Himanshu Dutta (II B.A.English)

Executive Council Members –
Manya Singh (II B.A. Programme)
Vidhi Gupta (II B.A. Programme)
Muthara Khan (II B.A. Programme)

PostScript Editors –
Keerthana Haridas (II B.A.English)
Moulishree Jha (II B.A.English)