Dr. Amritjit Singh has worked at Ohio University as the Langston Hughes Professor of English and African American Studies since 2006.
ATHENS, OH, August 14, 2018 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present Dr. Amritjit Singh with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Dr. Singh celebrates many years' experience in his professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
With more than 50 years of varied academic experience in three continents to his credit, Dr. Singh has worked at Ohio University as the Langston Hughes Professor of English and African American Studies since 2006. Prior to this appointment, he was a senior faculty member in English and African American Studies at Rhode Island College from 1986 to 2006, the Mary Tucker Thorp distinguished professor of arts and sciences at Rhode Island College from 1991 to 1992, an associate professor of English at Hofstra University from 1984 to 1986, and professor of English at the University of Rajasthan from 1978 to 1983. Previously, he served the University of Hyderabad as an associate professor from 1977 to 1978, the American Studies Research Centre (ASRC) in Hyderabad, India, as a research associate and Deputy Director from 1974 to 1977, Herbert H. Lehman College of CUNY as a lecturer and assistant professor between 1970 and 1974, and New York University as an instructor in English from 1971 to 1972. Dr. Singh began his career at the University of Delhi as a lecturer in English from 1965 to 1968.
Before embarking on his professional path, Dr. Singh pursued an education at Panjab University, earning a Bachelor of Arts in 1963. He continued his graduate studies with a Master of Arts at Kurukshetra University in 1965. Following these accomplishments, he obtained a Master of Arts at New York University in 1970. Dr. Singh concluded his studies at New York University in 1973, graduating with a Doctor of Philosophy. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on Harlem Renaissance fiction under the supervision of Professor William M. Gibson, Professor James W. Tuttleton, and novelist Ralph Ellison. In 1976, Penn State Press published the book based on his doctoral work and the book, The Novels of the Harlem Renaissance, remains in print.
Beyond his responsibilities within the field, Dr. Singh has participated in numerous endeavors outside of his professional circles. In 2003, he served as an honorary member on the judging panel for the International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award. The panel gave the Award to Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006. Singh found success with his written works as well, having authored, edited, or co-edited several books on African American Literature, Ethnic American Studies, and South Asian Studies. Associate Editor for creative writing for the South Asian Review since 2000, he has also served on the editorial boards for many other journals such as the Journal of American Ethnic History at Wayne State University and Asiatic from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Dr. Singh's edited works include pioneering reference works such as Afro-American Poetry and Drama, 1760-1975 (1979); Indian Literature in English, 1927-1979 (1981); and India: An Anthology of Contemporary Writing (1983). In 1989, he published The Harlem Renaissance: Revaluations and The Magic Circle of Henry James – both received well in American Literature circles. His other important publications include: Memory, Narrative and Identity (1994); Conversations with Ralph Ellison (1995); Conversations with Ishmael Reed (1995); Memory and Cultural Politics (1996); Postcolonial Theory and the United States (2000); The Collected Writings of Wallace Thurman (2003); Interviews with Edward Said (2004); and Revisiting India's Partition: Essays on Memory, Culture, and Politics (2016). In the 1990s, with his erudite introductions, Dr. Singh brought back into print three significant African American literary texts: Wallace Thurman's Infants of the Spring (1932; 1992), Richard Wright's Color Curtain (1956,1995); and Richard Wright's Black Power (1954; 1995). In 2011, Weavers Press, San Francisco, published The Circle of Illusion, a volume of Punjabi poems by Gurcharan Rampuri translated by Singh with poet Judy Ray of Tucson, AZ; a second edition of the book was published by National Book Shop in Delhi, India, in 2016. He has also edited special numbers of MELUS, Langston Hughes Review, South Asian Review and Re-Markings. Between 2005 and 2012, as the senior editor for MELA Series at Rutgers University Press, he helped to mentor into print 12 books in Multi-Ethnic Literature in the Americas, including Chinatown Family, by Lin Yutang, edited by C. Lok Chua; Daughter of the Revolution: The Major Nonfiction Works of Pauline E. Hopkins, edited by Ira Dworkin; Zora Neale Hurston: The Collected Plays, edited by Jean Lee Cole and Charles Mitchell; Visions and Divisions: American Immigration Literature, 1870-1930, edited by Tony Trigilio and Timothy Prchal; Comedy, American Style, by Jessie Fauset, edited by Cherene Sherrard-Johnson; and Luso-American Literature: Writings by Portuguese-Speaking Authors in North America, edited by Robert Henry Moser and Antonio Tosta.
In addition to his primary vocation as scholar, teacher, and mentor, Dr. Singh remains affiliated with various organizations in relation to his areas of expertise. He served MELUS (Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States) as Program Chair (1988-90) and as Deputy Editor (Book Reviews), from 1986 to 1999. As MELUS President from 1994 to 1997, he organized three major conferences and led the efforts to establish international chapters in Europe (MESEA) and India (MELUS-MELOW). With Professor C. Lok Chua, he edited a 600-page special number of the MELUS journal in honor of Katharine Newman, who founded MELUS in 1973.
He has also been active in the Modern Language Association (MLA) in many roles: Member, Delegate Assembly, MLA, 1990-93; Member/Chair, Executive Committee, Discussion Group on South Asian Languages and Literatures, 1997-02; Member/Chair, Executive Committee, Division on English Literature Other than British and American, 1998-03; Member and 2005 Chair, Executive Committee, Division on Black Literature and Culture, 2003-07; Member/Chair, Executive Committee, Division on Ethnic Studies in Language and Literature, 2011-16. He served as President of the South Asian Literary Association (SALA) from 2000 to 2003 and played a major role in raising its professional profile. In 1999, he helped to found the United States chapter of the Association of Commonwealth Language and Literature Studies (ACLALS) and served as its president from 2000 to 2005.
In light of his exceptional undertakings, Dr. Singh has accrued several accolades throughout his impressive career. He has garnered a Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society in 2013 and a Paul Harris Fellowship for Community Service from Rotary International in 2009. Dr. Singh was presented with a Faculty Award for Excellence in Global Engagement from Ohio University in 2014, the Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Excellence Award at the University of Delhi for 2014-15, the Distinguished Achievement Award from the SALA in 2014, the Lifetime Achievement Award from MELUS in 2007, and the College Faculty Research Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1988.
In addition, Dr. Singh has served as a Fulbright Senior Specialist at Alexandria University, Egypt in 2010, a Fulbright Senior Specialist at the University of Graz, Austria, in 2007, Senior Fulbright Professor at the JFK Institute of North American Studies, Freie University, Berlin, Germany, in 2002, and Killam Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Calgary in Canada in 1995. In 1994, he received an award from the Rockefeller Foundation for residency at Bellagio Center, Lake Como, Italy. In addition, he has been a Du Bois Fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University (1991-92); an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Fellow at Yale University (1983-84), a Ford Foundation Fellow in Ethnic Studies from New York University (1972-73), and as a Fulbright-Smith-Mundt Fellow at New York University (1968-69). Dr. Singh was selected for inclusion in the 24th edition of Who's Who in the East.
In May 2017, at the American Literature Association (ALA) meeting in Boston, Professor Singh was presented with a festschrift. Titled Crossing Borders: Essays on Literature, Culture, and Society in Honor of Amritjit Singh, the volume was edited by Tapan Basu and Tasneem Shahnaaz (both from the University of Delhi) and published in the U.S. by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press and in India by Orient Blackswan. Speaking on the occasion, Professor Thadious Davis of University of Pennsylvania, stated, "In selecting a topic [for my chapter], I considered Professor Amritjit Singh's groundbreaking 1976 book, The Novels of the Harlem Renaissance, because for a generation of scholars starting out in the 1970s, that work and a slim handful of other texts marked the dawning of the new age in African American studies of the Harlem or New Negro Renaissance." Professor Paul Lauter of Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, hailed Crossing Borders as "a brilliant festschrift [that] crosses borders of identity, nation, and art in ways that open our eyes—and our minds—to the multiple cultures [Amritjit Singh] has been so instrumental in enabling us to see and to engage." Professor John Ernest of University of Delaware, noted how Crossing Borders represents "both the depth and range of Amritjit Singh's work, extending across national borders, historical periods, and literary boundaries to represent an incredibly broad range of topics that, in the end, all seem intricately interconnected." Describing the volume as "one of the most exciting publishing events in the academy in a decade," Professor Hortense Spillers of Vanderbilt University underscored how the volume bears "remarkable testimony to the real and symbolic value of different cultural subjects gathering across borders to express their affectionate regard for an unrelenting worker in the 'contact zone' of a plethora of cultures."
When asked what still excites him most after five decades of intense activity as a teacher-scholar and global lecturer, Professor Singh stated simply, "new ideas and approaches that I can share with young audiences anywhere, even more so in the two largest democracies of the world, India and the United States."
In recognition of outstanding contributions to his profession and the Marquis Who's Who community, Dr. Singh has been featured on the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement website. Please visit www.ltachievers.com for more information about this honor.
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