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AU’s centenary celebrations: Great-grandnephew of AU Eng dept’s first HoD delivers talk in remembrance
The talk was titled “SG Dunn (1879-1964): The centenary of the English department of the University of Allahabad and some thoughts on teaching English in foreign lands”.
As part of the centenary celebrations, a lecture series was held at the department of English and Modern European languages in Allahabad University (AU) on Tuesday.
It commemorated the contribution of the founder head of the department Prof SG Dunn by eminent speaker and his great-grandnephew Michael Mitchell, honorary professor, Centre for Caribbean Studies, University of Warwick, UK.
The session was chaired by the present head of the department Prof Sonjoy Dutta Roy.
The talk was titled “SG Dunn (1879-1964): The centenary of the English department of the University of Allahabad and some thoughts on teaching English in foreign lands”.
Prof Mitchell shared old pictures of the residences of SG Dunn in the erstwhile Allahabad and England.
In his talk, he reminisced about the days gone by when Prof Dunn arrived in 1908. In his tribute to his former student Prof Amarnath Jha, the founding HoD had said that the best homage to his memory would be a translation of some of the greatest works in Sanskrit into English. This he thought could be a collaborative venture between the departments of English, Hindi and Sanskrit.
Dunn was awarded an honorary DLitt by the University of Allahabad during its golden jubilee celebration along with Carl Jung in 1937.
Dunn emphasised the importance of individualism. Prof Dunn believed that a university should be Republican in its functioning and non-hierarchical in its structure so that the teachers and the students interact as equals. A multi-faceted personality, Dunn was also a well known poet, a playwright, an Indian style wrestler, hunter and mountaineer. He had invited Tagore and Gandhi to the University of Allahabad campus.
Prof NS Gaur said that the halls of the department of English have been a witness of the presence of greats like SG Dunn, Amarnath Jha, Motilal Nehru, Harivansh Rai Bachchan and others.
The event was attended by former teaching faculty members including Prof JP Kulshrestha, AN Dwivedi, Prof Neelam Saran Gaur, Prof LR Sharma, Prof HS Saxena, Prof IB Das and Prof Alok Rai among others in his precincts.
Sadaf Siddiqui anchored the proceedings and Prof Sarvajit Mukerji proposed the vote of thanks.
