Easwari School of Liberal Arts
Department of History
The Department of History at SRM University-AP will aim to equip the students to learn from history rather than merely learning history. The courses in the Bachelor of Arts BA(Hons.) degree in History are designed to equip students with the knowledge of historical processes, events and transformations in world and Indian History from Stone Age to the contemporary world. By putting forth the various arguments/positions on the nature of the discipline, the program is designed to ensure that the students gather and are equipped to answer the question as to what is history; the perspective that there are many histories of the same event will drive the entire program and thus dispel the notion that history is just a narrative of dates and personalities. The thrust here will be on intensive reading of a variety of texts in History rather than rote learning; tutorial sessions where the student reads through text(s) on specific topics and makes presentations before her/his peers will constitute an essential half of the evaluation system at SRM University-AP; such assignments will include preparing book reviews and these will involve reading texts along with published comments on those.
Thus every student will be trained in the art of reading, writing, speaking, reasoning and interpretation of texts in periodic seminars. Continuous evaluation through tutorials, term papers and seminars apart from the end-term examinations will be the hallmark of this program. The courses contain necessary knowledge in the subject for pursuing higher degree in social sciences, from an inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary approach as well as to equip the students to face such competitive exams like the civil services.
The focus at SRM University-AP will be on interactive learning and the core principle at the Easwari School of Liberal Arts is knowledge through critical thinking as against rote learning and performance in examinations. The core team of regular faculty members, drawn from among the best in the discipline, in the department along with a host of visiting faculty comprising of scholars of international repute will take education beyond the class-rooms and engage with the students within and outside the class-rooms and also on subjects that are not necessarily part of the curriculum. History in particular and Social Sciences in general will form the subject matter of regular extra-mural lectures by scholars of eminence from across the world. All these will then be brought into the exercises/assignments that are part of the continuous evaluation system that the department will follow through the programme.