University Recommendations: Familiarise Yourself With These To Fine Tune Your UGC NET English Preparation

This list is made using the syllabus of major universities. You will get questions from this. In our mentorship programme we try to cover major texts from this. Try to familiarise yourself with these texts, authors and topics.

Literary Theory, Criticism, & Aesthetics

Abrams, M.H. The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (OUP, 1972/1977)
Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms (Cengage Learning, 2015)
Adams, Hazard (ed.). Critical Theory since Plato (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992)
Adorno, Theodor. “Lyric Poetry and Society” in Critical Theory and Society: A Reader (OUP, 2011)
Adorno, Theodor. ‘Culture Industry: Reconsidered’
Althusser, Louis, and Étienne Balibar. Reading Capital (Verso, 1979)
Aristotle. Poetics (Trans. Ingram Bywater or S.H. Butcher)
Auerbach, Eric. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (Princeton UP, 2014)
Bakhtin, M.M. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (University of Texas Press, 1982)
Bakhtin, Mikhail. ‘Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel’
Bennett, Andrew, and Nicholas Royle. An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory (Pearson, 2009)
Bhaduri, Saugata and Simi Malhotra. An Introduction to Literary Theory (Anthem Press, 2010)
Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction (University of Chicago Press, 1983)
Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas on the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757)
Burke, Kenneth. On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism (Cornell UP, 1982)
Cleanth Brooks and W.K. Wimsatt. Literary Criticism: A Short History (University of Chicago Press/Oxford and IBH, 1957/1983)
Derrida, Jacques. “Law of Genre”
Derrida, Jacques. Memoirs of the Blind: The Self-portrait and Other Ruins (University of Chicago Press, 1993)
Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction (Blackwell, 2008)
Eagleton, Terry. Marxism and Literary Criticism (Routledge, 2002)
Easthope, Antony and Kate McGowan (eds). A Critical and Cultural Theory Reader (University of Toronto Press, 1992)
Frye, Northrop. A Natural Perspective (Columbia UP, 1995)
Hall, Stuart. ‘Cultural studies: two paradigms’
Hegel, G. W. F. ‘Work of Art as Product of Human Activity’; ‘The Kantian Philosophy’; ‘Imagination Genius and Inspiration’
Heidegger, Martin. “…Poetically, Man Dwells…” from Poetry, Language, Thought (Harper and Row, 1971)
Horace. ‘Ars Poetica’ from Horace: Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica (Harvard UP, 2005)
Hudson, William Henry. An Introduction to the Study of Literature (Atlantic/Rupa, 1998/2006/2015)
Jameson, Fredric. “On Interpretation: Literature as a Socially Symbolic Act” in The Political Unconscious (Cornell UP, 1981)
Kant, Immanuel. ‘Analytic of the Beautiful’, The Critique of Judgment
Lacan, Jacques. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-analysis (Norton, 1978)
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim. Laocoon (1766)
Lodge, David (Ed). Twentieth Century Literary Criticism: A Reader (Routledge, 2016)
Longinus. “On the Sublime”
Lukács, Georg. The Historical Novel (University of Nebraska Press, 1983)
Lukács, Georg. The Theory of the Novel (MIT Press, 1971)
Nicholson, Linda J. (ed). Feminism/Postmodernism (Routledge, 1990)
Nietzsche, Friedrich. ‘What is the Meaning of Ascetic Ideals’, On the Genealogy of Morals
Plato. The Republic (Book X) and Ion
Richards, I.A. Principles of Literary Criticism (Routledge, 2017)
Rorty, Amélie Oksenberg (Ed). Essays on Aristotle's Poetics (Princeton UP, 1992)
Sartre, Jean-Paul. What is Literature? (Routledge, 2001)
Saussure, Ferdinand de. A Course in General Linguistics (Philosophical Library, 1959)
Schiller, Friedrich. Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man (Letters 2, 6, and 9)
Sethuraman, V.S. Indian Aesthetics: An Introduction (Trinity P, 2000)
Shelley, P.B. “A Defense of Poetry”
Thompson, E. M. Russian Formalism and Anglo-American New Criticism (Mouton, 1971)
Walton, David. Doing cultural theory (Sage)
Wellek, Rene. A History of Modern Criticism (Yale UP, 1986)
Wellek, Rene. “Genre Theory, The Lyric and Erlebnis” from Discriminations (Yale UP, 1970)
Wimsatt, W. K. The Verbal Icon (1954)
Wimsatt and Beardsley. “The Intentional Fallacy”, “The Affective Fallacy”

Language, Linguistics, & ELT

Akmajian, Adrian, et al. An introduction to language and communication (MIT Press)
Austin, Granville. "Language and the Constitution..." in The Indian Constitution
Bloomfield, Leonard. Language (George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1933)
Board of Editors. Linguistics: An Introduction (Orient Black Swan, 2015)
Bourdieu, Pierre. "The Production and reproduction of legitimate language" in Language and symbolic power
Brown, Gould. The Grammar of English Grammars (2004)
Bussmann, Hadumod. Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics (Routledge, 1999)
Catford, J.C. A Linguistic Theory of Translation (OUP, 1967)
Chierchia, Gennaro and Sally McConnell-Ginet. Meaning and Grammar (MIT Press)
Chomsky, Noam. Language and Thought (Moyer Bell, 1993)
Chomsky, Noam. Syntactic Structures (Mouton de Gruyter, 2002)
Cobley, Paul (ed.). The Routledge Companion to Semiotics and Linguistics (Routledge, 2005)
Crystal, David. How Language Works (Avery Trade, 2007)
Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (Cambridge UP, 1997)
Crystal, David. Making Sense: The Glamorous Story of English Grammar (OUP, 2017)
Devitt, Michael and Richard Hanley. The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Language (Wiley-Blackwell, 2006)
Fox, Chris and Shalom Lappin. The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory (Wiley-Blackwell, 2015)
Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams. An Introduction to Language (Thomson Wadsworth, 2004)
Hall, Christopher J, et al. Mapping applied linguistics (Routledge)
Holmes, Janet. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (Routledge, 2012)
Hymes, Dell. "Speech and Language..." in Ethnography, linguistics, narrative inequality
Kachru, Braj. Asian Englishes: Beyond the Canon (Hong Kong UP)
Kudchedkar (ed.). English Language Teaching in India (Orient Longman, 2002)
Ladefoged, Peter and Keith Johnson. A course in phonetics (Cengage)
Larsen-Freeman, Diane. Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching (OUP, 2000)
Lee, Barry (ed.). Philosophy of Language: The Key Thinkers (Continuum, 2011)
Meyer, Charles F. Introducing English linguistics (Cambridge UP)
Milroy, James. "Ideology of standard language" in The Routledge companion to sociolinguistics
Montgomery, Martin. An Introduction to Language and Society (Routledge, 1995)
Morris, Michael. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language (Cambridge UP, 2007)
Phillipson, Robert. "English in the new world order..." in Ideology, politics, and language policies
Piaget, Jean. The Child's Conception of the World (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1929)
Pinker, Steven. The Stuff of Thought: Language As a Window into Human Nature (Penguin, 2008)
Pinker, Steven. How the Mind Works (W. W. Norton & Company, 2009)
Pinker, Steven. The Language Instinct (Penguin)
Richards, Jack C. and Theodore S. Rodgers. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (Cambridge UP, 2001)
Sanders, Carol. The Cambridge Companion to Saussure (Cambridge UP)
Searle, John R. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (Cambridge UP, 1970)
Smith, Neil. Chomsky: Ideas and ideals (Cambridge UP)
Sonntag, Selma K. "Ideology and policy..." in Ideology, politics, and language policies
Syal and Jindal. An Introduction to Linguistics (Prentice Hall of India, 2016)
Tickoo, M.L. Teaching English as a Second Language (Orient Longman, 2003)
Toolan, Michael. Language in Literature (Hodder Arnold, 1998)
Verdonk, Peter. Stylistics (OUP, 2002)
Wales, Katie. A Dictionary of Stylistics (Longman, 2001)
Wardaugh, Ronald. An introduction to sociolinguistics (Blackwell)
Wright, Laura and Jonathan Hope. Stylistics: A Practical Coursebook (Routledge, 1996)
Wright, Sue. "Language policy and language planning" in The Routledge companion to sociolinguistics

Medieval & Early Modern Literature (Renaissance)

Adelman, Janet. Suffocating Mothers: Fantasies of Maternal Origin in Shakespeare’s Plays (Routledge, 1992)
Batt, C. Malory's Morte D'Arthur: Remaking Arthurian Tradition (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)
Black, Jeremy. England in the Age of Shakespeare (Indiana UP, 2019)
Bloch, Marc. Feudal Society (Routledge, 2014)
Brewer, Derek (ed.). Studies in Medieval English Romances: Some New Approaches (Cambridge UP, 1988)
Bryson, Bill. Shakespeare: The World as Stage (William Collins, 2012)
Colie, Rosalie. My Echoing Song: Andrew Marvell’s Poetry of Criticism (Princeton UP, 1970)
Corns, Thomas N. (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry, Donne to Marvell (Cambridge UP, 1993)
Cox, John D. and David Scott Kastan (eds.). A New History of Early English Drama (Columbia UP, 1997)
de Grazia, Margreta. Hamlet Without Hamlet (Cambridge UP, 2007)
de Grazia, Margreta and Stanley Wells (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare (Cambridge UP, 2001)
Dillon, Janette. Theatre, Court and City 1595-1610 (Cambridge UP, 2000)
Dollimore, Jonathan. Radical Tragedy (Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989)
Dollimore, Jonathan and Alan Sinfield (eds.). Political Shakespeare (Manchester UP/Cornell UP, 1985)
Drakakis, John (ed.). Alternative Shakespeares (Methuen, 1985)
Evans, Blackmore G. Elizabethan – Jacobean Drama (New Amsterdam Books, 1998)
Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self Fashioning from More to Shakespeare (Chicago UP, 1980)
Greenblatt, Stephen. Shakespearean Negotiations (Oxford: Clarendon P, 1988)
Hattaway, Michael (ed.). A Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture (Blackwell, 2003)
Hill, Christopher. Milton and the English Revolution (Faber and Faber, 1977)
Hopkins, Lisa. Beginning Shakespeare (Manchester UP, 2016)
Hunter, G.K. English Drama 1586-1642: The Age of Shakespeare (Clarendon, 1997)
Kelly, David. “The Canonization of John Donne” (Sydney Studies in English, 2008)
Kermode, Frank. Shakespeare’s Language (Allen Lane, 2000)
Kinney, Arthur F. (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to English Literature 1500-1600 (Cambridge UP, 2000)
Loewenstein, David and Janel Mueller (eds.). The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature (Cambridge UP, 2003)
Mann, Jill. From Aesop to Reynard: Beast Literature in Medieval Britain (Oxford UP, 2009)
Mann, Jill. Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire (Cambridge UP, 1973)
Montrose, Louis. “Spenser and the Elizabethan Poetical Imaginary” (ELH, 2002)
Saccio, Peter. Shakespeare’s English Kings: History, Chronicle and Drama (Oxford UP, 2000)
Schiffer, James. Shakespeare Sonnets – Critical Essays (2013)
Sidney, Philip. An Apology for Poetry
Skinner, Quentin. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought vol.1 (Cambridge UP, 1978)
Sullivan, G.A. et al. (eds.). Early Modern English Drama: A Critical Companion (Oxford UP, 2006)
Thommen, Basil. “The Sexual and the Spiritual in John Donne's Poetry”
Tillyard, EMW. Shakespeare’s History Plays (Vintage, 1975)
Zeeman, Nicolette. The Arts of Disruption: Allegory and Piers Plowman (Oxford UP, 2020)

Restoration, 18th Century, & Romantic Literature

Altick, Richard D. The English Common Reader (Ohio State UP, 1998)
Barzun, Jacques. Classic, Romantic, and Modern (University of Chicago Press, 1961)
Bostetter, Edward E. “The Nightmare World of 'The Ancient Mariner'” (Studies in Romanticism, 1962)
Bowra, C.M. The Romantic Imagination (OUP, 1961/1999)
Butler, Marilyn. Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries: English Literature and Its Background, 1760-1830 (OUP, 1981)
Clive, T. Probyn. English Fiction of the Eighteenth Century 1700 — 1789 (Longman, 1987)
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Literaria (Chap. XIII)
Damrosch, Leo. Eternity's Sunrise: The Imaginative World of William Blake (Yale UP, 2016)
Defoe, Daniel. ‘The Complete English Tradesman’, ‘The Great Law of Subordination Considered’, & ‘The Complete English Gentleman’
Gilpin, George H. Critical Essays on William Wordsworth (G. K. Hall, 1990)
Gilpin, William. ‘On Picturesque Travel’ from Three Essays: On Picturesque Beauty
Habermas, Jurgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (MIT, 1989)
Hay, Daisy. Young Romantics: the Shelleys, Byron, and Other Tangled Lives (Bloomsbury, 2010)
Hazard, Adams. Critical Essays on William Blake (G.K. Hall, 1991)
Hazlitt, William and Leigh Hunt. The Round Table (1817)
Hazlitt, William. “Why the Arts are Not Progressive”
Hill, John Spencer. A Coleridge Companion (Palgrave Macmillan, 1983)
Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789-1848 (Wedenfeld and Nicholson, 1962)
Keats, John. Letters to George and Thomas Keats, and Richard Woodhouse.
Keymer, Tom. Jane Austen: Writing, Society, Politics (Oxford UP)
Johnson, Claudia L. Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel (University of Chicago Press)
Manning, Susan. “Antiquarianism, Balladry and the Rehabilitation of Romance” in The Cambridge History of English Romantic Literature
McCalman, Iain (ed.). An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age (OUP, 2009)
McKeon, Michael. The Origins of the English Novel, 1600–1740 (Johns Hopkins UP, 1987)
Nussbaum, Martha. The Cosmopolitan Tradition: A Noble but Flawed Ideal (Harvard UP, 2019)
Pullman, Philip. “William Blake and me”
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. ‘Preface’ to Emile and ‘Discourse on the Origin of Inequality’
Sutherland, James. Preface to 18th Century Poetry Background (OUP, 1948)
Winberg, Christine. “Coleridge on Wordsworth’s Preface to 'Lyrical Ballads'” (Theoria, 1984)
Wordsworth, William. ‘Preface to Lyrical Ballads’
Victorian & 19th Century Literature
Allen, Walter. The English Novel (Penguin, 1958)
Berdoe, Edward. The Browning Cyclopædia (1897)
Darwin, Charles. ‘Natural Selection and Sexual Selection’ in The Descent of Man
Davis, Lennard J. Factual Fictions: The Origins of the English Novel (Columbia UP, 1983)
Drew, Philip. The Poetry of Robert Browning: A critical introduction (Methuen, 1970)
Litzinger, Boyd and Donald Smalley. Robert Browning: The Critical Heritage (Routledge, 1968)
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. ‘Mode of Production’, ‘The Social Nature of Consciousness’, ‘Classes and Ideology’, and The Communist Manifesto
Mill, John Stuart. ‘The Subjection of Women’
Newcomb, Mildred. The Imagined World of Charles Dickens (University of Ohio Press)
Poovey, Mary. Uneven Developments: the Ideological Work of Gender in Mid-Victorian England (University of Chicago Press, 1988)
Skilton, David. The English Novel: Defoe to the Victorians (David & Charles, 1977)
Watt, Ian. The Rise of the Novel (Random House, 2011)

Modernism & 20th Century Literature

Beasley, Rebecca. Theories of Modernist Poetry (Routledge, 2007)
Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot
Bigsby, C.W.E. Contemporary English Drama (Homes & Meier, 1981)
Blamires, Harry (Ed). A Guide to 20th Century Literature in English (Kegan & Paul, 1983)
Bradbury, Malcolm. Modernism (Penguin, 1978/1991)
Brecht, Bertolt. The Messingkauf Dialogues, ‘The Street Scene’, ‘Dramatic Theatre vs Epic Theatre’
Brooker, Peter (Ed). Modernism/Postmodernism (Routledge, 1992)
Brown, Richard Danson and Suman Gupta. Aestheticism & Modernism (Routledge)
Burgess, Anthony. The Novel Now (Faber, 1967)
Camus, Albert. ‘Absurdity and Suicide’, ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’
Eliot, T.S. “Johnson as a Critic and a Poet”
Ellman, Richard and Charles Feidelson Jr. (ed). The Modern Tradition (OUP, 1980)
Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd (Bloomsbury/Vintage/Penguin)
Farner, Geir. Literary Fiction: The Ways We Read Narrative Literature (Bloomsbury, 2014)
Fischer-Lichte, Erika. History of European Drama and Theatre (Routledge, 1990)
Forster, E.M. Aspects of the Novel (Penguin, 2005)
Frazer, G.S. The Modern Writer and His World (Pelican, 1964)
Freud, Sigmund. ‘Theory of Dreams’, ‘Oedipus Complex’, ‘The Structure of the Unconscious’, Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis
Graff, Gerald. Literature Against Itself (University of Chicago Press, 1979)
Hamilton, Ian. The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Poetry in English (OUP, 1996)
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House, Ghosts
Ionesco, Eugene. Exit the King, Notes and Counter Notes, Rhinoceros, The Chairs
James, Henry. “The Art of Fiction”
Johnson, David. The Popular & the Canonical (Routledge)
Kundera, Milan. The Art of the Novel (Faber)
Lawrence, D.H. ‘Morality and the Novel’
Leavis, F.R. The Great Tradition (Andesite Press, 2007)
Marker, Frederick and Christopher Innes. Modernism in European Drama (U of Toronto Press, 1998)
McGaw, William (Ed). Inventing Countries: Essays in Postcolonial Literature (University of Wollongong, 1987)
Perkins, David. A History of Modern Poetry (Harvard Press, 1987)
Praz, Mario. “T. S. Eliot as a Critic" (The Sewanee Review, 1966)
Robinson, Peter. Twentieth Century Poetry: Selves and Situations (OUP)
Scully, James (ed). Modern Poets on Modern Poetry (Fontana, 1970)
Stanislavsky, Constantin. ‘Faith and the Sense of Truth’, An Actor Prepares
Steiner, George. ‘On Modern Tragedy’, The Death of Tragedy
Styan, J.L. Modern Drama in Theory and Practice (Cambridge UP, 1981/1983)
Szondi, Peter. Theory of the Modern Drama (University of Minnesota Press, 1987)
Trotter, David. “The Modernist Novel” in The Cambridge Companion to Modernism (Cambridge UP, 1999)
Tuma, Keith. Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry (OUP, 2001)
Wain, John. Essays on Literature and Ideas (Greenwood Press, 1978)
Waugh, Patricia. ‘Culture and Change: 1960-1990’
Weston, Jessie. From Ritual to Romance (Princeton UP, 1993)
Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society (Columbia UP, 1958)
Williams, Raymond. Drama from Ibsen to Brecht (Penguin, 1981)
Williams, Raymond. ‘Introduction’, The English Novel from Dickens to Lawrence
Williams, Raymond. ‘Metropolitan Perceptions and the Emergence of Modernism’
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own, ON BEING ILL, “Modern Fiction”
Worth, K. Revolutions in Modern English Drama (Bell, 1973)

American Literature

Bercovitch, Sacvan (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to American Literature (Cambridge UP, 1986)
Bercovitch, Sacvan (ed.). The Cambridge History of American Literature (Cambridge UP)
Bigsby, C.W.E. (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Culture (Cambridge UP, 2006)
Bigsby, C.W.E. Modern American Drama (Cambridge UP, 1992)
Cam, Heather. “’Daddy’: Sylvia Plath’s Debt to Anne Sexton” (American Literature, 1987)
Crevecouer, Hector St John. Letters from An American Farmer (Letter III)
Ditsky, John. John Steinbeck and the Critics (Camden House, 2000)
Douglass, Frederick. A Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass (Chaps. 1–7)
Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Sorrow Songs” from The Souls of Black Folks
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. ‘Self-Reliance’
French, Warren. Twentieth-Century American Literature (Macmillan, 1980)
Gates, Henry Louis and Nellie Mckayed. Norton Anthology of African American Literature (WW Norton, 1996)
Giannone, Richard. “Music in My Antonia” (Prairie Schooner, 1981)
Gray, Richard. American Literature: A History (Blackwell, 2004)
Grundy, David. A Black Arts Poetry Machine (Bloomsbury, 2019)
Hazynes, Karima A. “Maya Angelou: Prime-Time Poet” (Ebony, 1993)
Hochman, Barbara. “The Reading Habit and The Yellow Wallpaper” (American Literature, 2002)
Hohmann, Charles. Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (University of California Press, 2008)
Kaul, A.N. The American Vision (Yale UP, 1963)
Kemp, Yakini B. “Writing Power: Identity Complexities... in Audre Lorde’s Writing”
King Jr, Martin Luther. ‘I have a dream’
Marcus, Greil and Werner Sollors (eds.). A New History of American Literature (Harvard UP, 2009)
Matthiessen, F.O. American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman (OUP, 1941/1968)
McNeill, Helen. Emily Dickinson (Pantheon, 1986)
Montiero, G. Robert Frost and The New England Renaissance (UP of Kentucky, 1988)
Parrington, Vernon. Main Currents in American Thought (University of Oklahoma Press, 1987)
Rich, Adrienne. 'When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision'
Rich, Adrienne. A Human Eye: Essays on Art in Society 1997-2008 (Norton, 2009)
Smykowski, Adam. “Symbolism and Racism in To Kill a Mockingbird”
Sundquist, Eric J. To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making of American Literature (Harvard UP, 1993)
Twelve Southerners. I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition (LSU Press, 2006)
Visser, Nicholas. “Audience and Closure in The Grapes of Wrath” (Studies in American Fiction, 1994)
Wright, Richard. Native Son (Harper Perennial, 2005)
Zuba, Jesse. The First Book: Twentieth Century Poetic Career in America (Princeton UP, 2015)
The Norton Anthology of American Literature / The Heath Anthology of American Literature / Pelican Guide to American Literature

Postcolonial Literature & Theory

Achebe, Chinua. “English and the African Writer” (Transition, 1997)
Ashcroft, Bill, et al. The Empire Writes Back (Routledge/Psychology Press, 2002)
Ashcroft, Bill, et al. Post-Colonial Studies: Key Concepts (Routledge, 2000)
Bhabha, Homi K. (ed). Nation and Narration (Routledge, 1990)
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture (Routledge, 1994)
Boehmer, Elleke. Colonial and Postcolonial Literature (OUP, 2005)
Césaire, Aimé. Discourse on Colonialism (Monthly Review Press, 2000)
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. Provincializing Europe (Princeton UP, 2000)
Craps, Stef. Postcolonial Witnessing: Trauma Out of Bounds (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)
Fanon, Franz. Black Skin, White Masks (Grove Press, 1967) and “The Negro and Language”
Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004)
Gandhi, Leela. Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction (OUP, 1998)
Gilbert, Helen and Joanne Tompkins. Post-Colonial Drama: Theory, Practice, Politics (Routledge, 1996)
Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness
Guha, Ranajit (ed). A Subaltern Studies Reader (University of Minnesota Press, 1997)
Kapur, Ratna. Erotic Justice: Law and the New Politics of Postcolonialism (Glasshouse Press, 2005)
Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism (Routledge, 1998/2012)
Mamdani, Mahmood. “Amnesty or Impunity: A Preliminary Critique... South Africa” (Diacritics, 2002)
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. “The Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech”
McClintock, Anne. “Family Feuds: Gender, Nationalism, and the Family” (Feminist Review, 1993)
McLeod, John (ed). The Routledge Companion to Postcolonial Studies (Routledge, 2007)
Mishra, Vijay. “Indenture and Diaspora Poetics,” The Literature of the Indian Diaspora (Routledge, 2007)
Mullaney, Julie. Postcolonial Literatures in Context (Continuum, 2010)
Parry, Benita. Postcolonial Studies: A Materialist Critique (Routledge, 2004)
Ramzani, Jahan. The Hybrid Muse: Postcolonial Poetry (University of Chicago)
Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism (Granta, 1991) and ‘Commonwealth Literature does not exist’
Said, Edward. Orientalism (Routledge, 1978) including “Introduction”, “The Scope of Orientalism”, ‘Crisis in Orientalism’
Said, Edward. Literature & Resistance (South End Press, 2003)
Said, Edward. The Question of Palestine (Vintage, 1992)
Sarkar, Parama. Postcolonial Literatures (Orient BlackSwan, 2016)
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?”
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “A Literary Representation of the Subaltern: Mahasweta Devi’s ‘Standayini’”
Suleri, Sara. “Woman Skin deep: Feminism and the Postcolonial Condition”
Thieme, John (ed). The Arnold Anthology of Post-Colonial Literatures in English (Arnold, 1996)
Thiong’o, Ngugi wa. Decolonizing the Mind (Heinemann, 1986) and “The Language of African Literature”
Trivedi, Harish and Meenakshi Mukherjee (eds). Interrogating Post-Colonialism (IIAS, 1996)
Vishwanathan, Gauri. Masks of Conquest (Columbia UP, 1989)
Walcott, Derek. “The Muse of History” in The Postcolonial Studies Reader
Young, Robert. “Postcolonial Remains” (New Literary History, 2012)
Young, Robert. “Colonialism and the Politics of Postcolonial Critique”

Indian Literature (Classical, English, Regional & Translation)

Ahmad, Aijaz. In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures (Verso, 1992)
Ananthamurthy, U.R. ‘Being a Writer in India’
Anjaria, Ulka. Realism in the Twentieth-Century Indian Novel (Cambridge UP, 2012)
Asaduddin, M. (Ed). Lifting the Veil (Penguin, 2009)
Bharata Muni. Natyasastra (Selections: Ch 6, 20, 35)
Burton, Antoinette. Dwelling in the Archive: Women Writing House, Home, and History in Late Colonial India (Oxford UP, 2003)
Chattopadhyaya, Devi Prasad. Lokayata (Rajkamal Prakashan, 1982)
Chaudhery, Satya Dev. Glimpses of Indian Poetics (Sahitya Academy, 2002)
Clark, T.N. (ed). The Novel in India: It’s Birth and Development (Allen & Unwin, 1970)
Das, Sisir Kumar. A History of Indian Literature (Sahitya Akademi, 2005)
De Souza, Eunice. “Recovering a Tradition: Forgotten Women’s Voices” (EPW, 2006)
Dev, A.N. et al. Indian Literature: An Introduction (Pearson, 2006)
Devy, G.N. After Amnesia (Orient Longman, 1992)
Devy, G.N. In Another Tongue: Essays on Indian English (Macmillan, 1994)
Devy, G.N. (ed). Painted Words: An Anthology of Tribal Literature (Penguin, 2002/2003)
Dharwadker, A.B. Theatres of Independence (University of Iowa Press, 2009)
Dharwadker, Aparna. ‘Modern Indian Theatre’
Dharwadker, Vinay. ‘Some Contexts of Modern Indian Poetry’
Farrin, Raymond. Abundance from the Desert: Classical Arabic Poetry (Syracuse UP)
Gerow, Edwin, et al. ‘Indian Poetics’ in The Literatures of India
Gill, Preeti. The Peripheral Centre: Voices from India’s Northeast (Zubaan, 2010)
Gupta, Akhil. “Narratives of Corruption” in Red Tape (Duke UP, 2012)
Heyman, Michael. “An Indian Nonsense Naissance” in The Tenth Rasa (Penguin, 2007)
Iyenger, K. R. Srinivasa. Indian Writing in English (Asia Publishing House, 1962/1985)
Kalita, Garima. Reading India’s North East (MRB Publications)
Kapoor, Kapil. Indian Knowledge System Vol. 1 (D.K. Printworld, 2005)
Katyal, Akhil. The Doubleness of Sexuality: Idioms of Same-Sex Desire in Modern India (New Text, 2016)
Kaviraj, Sudipta. The Imaginary Institution of India (Columbia UP, 2010)
King, Bruce. Modern Indian Poetry in English (OUP, 2005)
Mehta, Tarla (ed.). Sanskrit Play Production in Ancient India (Motilal Banarsidass)
Mehrotra, Arvind Krishna (ed.). A History of Indian Literature in English (C. Hurst & Co., 2003)
Merchant, Hoshang. Yaraana: Gay Writing from South Asia (Penguin, 2000)
Misra, Tilottama (ed.). The Oxford Anthology of Writings from North East India (OUP, 2011)
Mufti, Aamir. “Towards A Lyric History of India” (Boundary 2, 2004)
Mukherjee, Meenakshi. The Twice Born Fiction (Heinemann/Pencraft, 1971/2007)
Mukherjee, Meenakshi. The Perishable Empire (OUP, 2000)
Mukherjee, Meenakshi. “Recovering ‘Lost’ Texts” (Journal of Arts and Ideas, 1992)
Mukherjee, Sujit. The Idea of Indian Literature (CIIL, Mysore)
Naik, M. K. (Ed). Perspectives on Indian Prose in English (Abhinav Publications, 1984)
Naik, M. K. A History of Indian English Literature (Sahitya Akademi, 1982/2009)
Naik, M.K. and Shyamala A. Narayan. Indian English Literature 1980-2000: A Critical Survey (Pencraft, 2001/2007)
Nerlekar, Anjali. Bombay Modern: Arun Kolatkar and Bilingual Literary Culture (Speaking Tiger, 2017)
Ngangom, Robin S. “Contemporary Manipuri Poetry: An Overview”
Oldenburg, Veena Talwar. The Making of Colonial Lucknow: 1856-1877 (Princeton UP, 1984)
Osho. Selections from Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy
Paranjape, Makarand (ed). Sarojini Naidu: Selected Poetry and Prose (Rupa & Co. 2010)
Parashkevova, Vassilena. Salman Rushdie's Cities (Bloomsbury, 2012)
Pathak, Namrata and L.K. Gracy. Women’s Writing from North-East India (MRB Publications)
Pollock, Sheldon. A Rasa Reader: Classical Indian Aesthetics (Columbia UP)
Rao, Raja. ‘Foreword’ to Kanthapura (OUP, 1989)
Rizvi, Fatima. “Feminist and Marxist Tendencies in Urdu Fiction..." (JSL, 2007)
Russel, Ralph and Khurshidul Islam. Ghalib: Life and Letters (OUP, 2007)
Sangari, Kumkum and Sudesh Vaid. Recasting Women: Essays in Indian Colonial History (Kali for Women, 1989)
Sharma, Sunil. Amir Khusraw: The Poet of Sultans and Sufis (Oneworld)
Singh, Namwar. ‘Decolonising the Indian Mind’
Stetkevych, Suzanne Pinckney (ed.). Early Islamic Poetry and Poetics (Routledge)
Tharu, Susie and K. Lalita (eds). Women Writing in India: 600 B.C to the Present (OUP, 1997)
Venkatachalapathy, R. ‘Introduction’, Love Stands Alone: Selections from Tamil Sangam Poetry
Zama, Margaret (Ed). Emerging Literatures from Northeast India (Sage, 2013)
Zecchini, Laetitia. Arun Kolatkar and Literary Modernism in India (Bloomsbury, 2014)

Dalit Studies & Marginalized Literatures

Abraham, Joshil K. and Judith Misrahi-Barak. Dalit Literatures in India (Routledge, 2016)
Ahmad, Imtiaz. ‘Can there be a Category called Dalit Muslims?’
Ambedkar, B.R. Annihilation of Caste (Chaps 4, 6, 14) and “Representation of Minorities”
Bagul, Baburao. 'Dalit Literature is but Human Literature'
Basu, Swaraj. Readings on Dalit Identity: History, Literature and Religion (Orient BlackSwan, 2016)
Dangle, Arjun (ed.). Poisoned Bread (Orient Blackswan, 1992)
Dirks, Nicholas B. Castes of Mind
Gauthaman, Raj. 'Dalit Culture', No Alphabet in Sight
Guru, Gopal. “Dalit Women Talk Differently“
Limbale, Sharankumar. Towards an Aesthetics of Dalit Literature (Orient Black Swan, 2004) and ‘Dalit Literature and Aesthetics’
Mahananda, Saroj Kumar. Caste, Reality and Mediation (Supriya Books, 2017)
Nagaraj, D.R. The Flaming Feet and Other Essays (Permanent Black, 2010)
Pandit, Maya. "Global vs. Local..." in English in the dalit context
Phule, Jyotiba. “Gulamgiri” in Selected writings of Jyotiba Phule (Manohar, 2002)
Rani, Challapalli Swaroopa. 'Caste Domination Male Domination'
Rege, Sharmila. Writing Caste, Writing Gender: Narrating Dalit Women’s Testimonies (Zubaan, 2006/2013)
Revathi, A. A Life in Transactivism
Russel and Hira Lal. “Introduction” to Tribes and Castes in the Central Provinces of India (1916)
Sinha, Archana and Mukhtar Alam. Dalit Muslims – Double Exclusion (Indian Social Institute, 2010)
Srinivas, M. N. Caste in Modern India and Other Essays
Zelliot, Eleaner. From Untouchable to Dalit (Manohar, 1992)

Gender, Sexuality, & Disability Studies

Addlakha, Renu. Disability Studies in India (2013)
Anand, Shilpaa. ‘Historicizing Disability in India’
Ang, Ien. “Feminist Desire and Female Pleasure...” (Camera Obscura, 1988)
Balibar, Etienne. “Homo nationalis: An Anthropological Sketch of the Nation-Form”
Barnes, Colin, et al. Exploring Disability: A Sociological Introduction (Polity Press, 1999)
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble (Routledge, 1990)
Chakravarti, Uma. 'Reconceptualising Gender: Phule, Brahmanism and Brahmanical Patriarchy'
Couser, Thomas. ‘Signifying Selves: Disability and Life Writing’
Das, Veena and Renu Addlakha. ‘Disability and Domestic Citizenship’
Davis, Lennard J. ‘Constructing Normalcy’
de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex (Vintage, 1997)
Douglass, Ana and Thomas A. Vogler. Witness and Memory: The Discourse of Trauma (Routledge, 2003)
Eckert, Penelope and Sally McConnell-Ginet. Language and Gender (Cambridge UP)
Gardiner, Judith Kegan. Masculinity Studies and Feminist Theory (Columbia UP, 2002)
Ghai, Anita. Rethinking Disability in India (Routledge India, 2015)
Ghosh, Nandini. Interrogating Disability in India (Springer Verlag, 2016)
Hirsch, Marianne. “Marked by Memory: Feminist Reflections on Trauma and Transmission”
Irigaray, Luce. ‘When the Goods Get Together’
Jackson, Stevi and Jackie Jones (eds). Contemporary Feminist Theories (Edinburgh UP, 1998)
Jardine, Alice. Gynesis: Configurations of Woman and Modernity (Cornell UP, 1985)
Keller, Helen. The Story of My Life
Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay in Abjection (Columbia UP, 1980)
Kristeva, Julia. Revolution in Poetic Language (Columbia UP, 1974)
Linton, Simi. ‘Disability Studies/Not Disability Studies’
Millett, Kate. Sexual Politics (Doubleday, 1970)
Mitchell, David and Snyder, Sharon. The Biopolitics of Disability (U of Michigan P, 2015)
Pathak, Zakia and Rajeswari Sunder Rajan. “Shahbano“
Quayson, Ato. ‘A Typology of Disability Representation’
Sunder Rajan, Rajeswari. “Life After Rape: Narrative, Rape and Feminism”
Shakespeare, Tom. Disability Rights and Wrongs (Routledge, 2006)
Showalter, Elaine. ‘Introduction’, A Literature of Their Own
Vanita, Ruth and Saleem Kidwai (eds). Same-sex Love in India (St Martin‘s P, 2000)
Wittig, Monique. The Straight Mind and Other Essays (Beacon P, 1992)
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Zinn, Maxine Baca (ed). Gender Through the Prism of Difference (OUP, 2015)

Creative Writing, Research Methodology, & Translation

Bailey, Stephen. Academic Writing: A Handbook for International Students
Bailey, S. (ed). Creative Writing in Four Genres (2003)
Barnet, Sylvan. Creative Writing: Realities and Remedies (Longman, 1993)
Bassnett, Susan. Translation Studies (Routledge, 2002)
Bassnett, Susan and Andre Lefevere (eds). Translation History and Culture (Pinter, 1990)
Bassnett, Susan and Harish Trivedi (eds). Postcolonial Translation: Theory and Practice (Routledge, 1999)
Bell, Julia and Paul Magrs (eds). The Creative Writing Coursebook (Macmillan, 2001)
Benoit, Madhu, et al (eds). “Violets in a Crucible”: Translating the Orient (Pencraft, 2019)
Bulman, Colin. Creative Writing: A Guide and Glossary to Fiction Writing (Polity Press, 2007)
Corrigan, Timothy. A Short Guide to Writing About Film (Pearson, 2011)
Dev, Anjana Neira et al. Creative Writing: A Beginner’s Manual (Pearson, 2009)
Drewry, John E. Writing Book Reviews (The Writer, 1966)
Griffin, Gabriele. Research Methods in English Studies
Holmes, James S. (ed.). The Nature of Translation (Walter de Gruyter, 1970)
Kamerman, Sylvia E. (Ed). Book Reviewing (The Writer, 1978)
King, Stephen. On Writing (Hodder & Stoughton, 2000)
Kothari, C. R. Research Methodology: Methods and Techniques
Lefevere, Andre. Translation/History/Culture (Routledge, 1992)
Morley, David. The Cambridge Introduction to Creative Writing (Cambridge UP, 2007)
Mukherjee, Sujit. Translation as Discovery and Translation as Recovery
Munday, Jeremy. Introducing Translation Studies (Routledge, 2001)
Newmark, Peter. A Textbook of Translation and “Theory and Craft of Translation”
Rahman, Anisur (ed). Translation: Poetics and Practice (Creative Books, 2002)
Savage, Alice and Mausod Shafiei. Academic Writing 1: Paragraph
Simon, Sherry and Paul St-Pierre (eds). Changing the Terms (University of Ottawa Press, 2000)
Sinha, M.P. Research Methods in English
Skidmore, Joey. The Review As Art And Communication (2013)
Skinner, Quentin. "Motives, Intentions and Interpretation"
Strunk Jr., William. Elements of Style (2007)
Venuti, Lawrence. Translation’s Invisibility and The Translation Studies Reader (Routledge, 2012)
Walford, A.J. (Ed). Reviews and Reviewing: A Guide (Greenwood, 1986)
Weissbort, Daniel and Astradur Eysteinsson (ed.). Translation-Theory and Practice: A Historical Reader (OUP, 2006)
Winch, Peter. "Can we understand ourselves?" (Philosophical Investigations)

Popular Literature, Genre Fiction, & Culture

Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice (Sage, 2008)
Bennett, Tony (ed). Popular Fiction: Technology, Ideology, Production, Reading (Routledge, 1990)
Bennett, Tony, et al (eds). Culture, Ideology and Social Process (The Open UP, 1981)
Berberich, Christine (ed). The Bloomsbury Introduction to Popular Fiction (Bloomsbury, 2017)
Berger, Arthur A. Popular Culture Genres: Theories and Texts (Sage, 1992)
Bloom, Clive. Cult Fiction: Popular Reading and Pulp Theory (St. Martin's P, 1998)
Bloom, Harold. How to Read and Why (Scribner, 2001)
Cammaerts, Emile. The Poetry of Nonsense (1926)
Cawelti, John. G. Adventure Mystery and Romance (University of Chicago Press, 1977)
Chattopadhyay, Bodhisattva, et al. Indian Genre Fiction: Pasts and Future Histories
Chesterton, G.K. “A Defence of Nonsense”
Chomsky, Noam. ‘On Resistance’ (NYRB, 1967)
Counihan, Carole and Penny Van Esterik (ed.). Food and Culture: A Reader (Routledge, 2013)
Deleuze, Gilles. The Logic of Sense (Columbia UP, 1990)
During, Simon (ed.). The Cultural Studies Reader (Routledge, 1993)
Evnine, Simon J. “‘But Is It Science Fiction?’: Science Fiction and a Theory of Genre”
Fiske, John. Reading the Popular (Unwin Hyman/Routledge, 1989/2010)
Grossberg, Lawrence, et al (eds). Cultural Studies (Routledge, 1992)
Heiden, Bruce. Narrative in Poetry: A Problem of Narrative Theory
Hühn, Peter and Jörg Schönert. “The Theory and Methodology of the Narratological Analysis of Lyric Poetry”
Iyer, Pico. Falling Off the Map (Vintage, 1994)
Lewis, Tess. “Review: Literature as Resistance” (The Hudson Review, 2008)
Malcolm, Noel. The Origins of English Nonsense (Harper Collins, 1999)
McHale, Brian. “Beginning to Think about Narrative in Poetry” (Narrative, 2009)
Morag, Shiach. Discourse on Popular Culture (Polity Press, 1989)
Nayar, Pramod K. Introduction to Cultural Studies (Viva Books, 2008)
Orwell, George. “Nonsense Poetry”
Pawling, Christopher (ed). Popular Fiction and Social Change (Macmillan, 1984)
Radford, Jean (Ed). The Progress of Romance: The Politics of Popular Fiction (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986)
Ross, Andrew. No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture (Routledge, 1989)
Tigges, Wim. An Anatomy of Literary Nonsense (Rodopi, 1988)

Visual Arts, Cinema, & Media

Andrew, Dudley. Concepts in Film Theory (OUP, 1984)
Bluestone, George. Novels into Film (Johns Hopkins UP, 1957)
Boal, Augusto. Theatre of the Oppressed (Pluto Press, 2000)
Bordwell, David and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction (McGraw-Hill, 2008)
Burke, Kenneth. The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (Princeton UP, 1958)
Corrigan, Timothy. A Short Guide to Writing About Film (Pearson, 2011)
Gombrich, E.F. Art and Illusion (Princeton UP, 1961)
Gupt, Bharat. Dramatic Concepts: Greek & Indian (D. K. Printworld, 1994)
Mirzoeff, Nicholas. An Introduction to Visual Culture (Routledge, 1992)
Mitchell, W.J.T. What Do Pictures Want? (U of Chicago P, 2005)
Mitter, Partha. Art and Nationalism in Colonial India: 1850-1922 (Cambridge UP, 1994)
Sircar, Badal. The Third Theatre (1978)
Sontag, Susan (ed). Antonin Artaud: Selected Writings (University of California Press, 1976)
Stam, Robert. Literature and Film: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation (Blackwell, 2005)
Thakurta, Tapati Guha. The Making of a New ‘Indian’ Art (Cambridge South Asian Studies, 1992)

Religion, Philosophy, & Society

Bernstein, Richard J. The Pragmatic Turn (Wiley-Polity, 2010)
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Harvard UP, 1984)
Brooks, Cleanth. Community, Religion, and Literature Essays (University of Missouri Press, 1995)
Chapman, A. et al (eds). Seeing Things Their Way: Intellectual History and the Return of Religion (U of Notre Dame, 2009)
Dalmia, Vasudha & Heinrich von Stietencron (ed.). Representing Hinduism (Sage, 1995)
Ferrante, Joan M. The Political Vision of the Divine Comedy (Princeton UP, 1984)
Foucault, Michel. “Panopticism” from Discipline and Punishment (Vintage, 1995)
Habermas, Jürgen. “What is Universal Pragmatics?”
Kymlicka, Will (ed). The Rights of Minority Cultures (OUP, 1995)
Lee, Louise and Mark Knight. Religion, Literature and the Imagination: Sacred Worlds (Bloomsbury, 2009)
Martz, Louis Lohr. The Poetry of Meditation (Yale UP, 1955)
Matilal, Bimal Krishna. The Word and the World ("Sphota Theory")
Mullan, David George. Religious Pluralism in the West (Wiley-Blackwell, 1997)
Nixon, Rob. “The Anthropocene: The Promise and Pitfalls...” (University of Chicago Press, 2018)
Rathi, Manav. Postsecular Imagination (2013)
Sacks, Peter. The English Elegy (Johns Hopkins Press, 1985)
Ramzani, Jahan. The Poetry of Mourning (University of Chicago Press, 1994)
Saikia, Yasmin. “Beyond the Archive of Silence: Narratives of Violence...” (History Workshop Journal, 2004)
Schendel, Willem van. “Partition Studies”
Skinner, Quentin. Visions of Politics (Cambridge UP, 2002)
Snow, C.P. The Two Cultures (Cambridge UP, 2012)
Sowell, Thomas. Race and Culture: A World View (Basic Books, 1995)
Springborg, Patricia (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes (Cambridge UP, 2012)
Stern, Paul. Dante’s Philosophical Life (Pennsylvania UP, 2018)
Stewart, Susan. In the Darkness, Poetry and the Fate of Senses (University of Chicago Press, 2002)
Strauss, Leo. The Political Philosophy of Hobbes (U of Chicago P, 1952)
Verma Committee Report. “Rape and Sexual Violence” (2013)
Vermeulen, Pieter. ‘Anthropocene Agencies’

History of Literature (General/Anthologies)

Bernal, Martin. Black Athena (Rutgers UP)
Carter, Ronald, John McRae. The Routledge History of English Literature (Taylor & Francis, 2016)
Easterling, P.E. and B.M.W. Knox (eds.). The Cambridge History of Classical Literature vol. 1: Greek Literature (Cambridge UP, 1985)
Evans, Ifor. A Short History of English Literature (Penguin, 1976)
Grimal, Pierre. The Penguin Dictionary of Classical Mythology
Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths (Quercus, 2012)
Nayar, Pramod K. A Short History of English Literature (Foundation Books, 2010)
Poplawski, Paul (ed.). English Literature in Context (Cambridge UP, 2008)
Vernant, Jean-Pierre. Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece (Zone Books, 1990)