A26-April 13, 2007—INDIA-WEST NATIONAL – US

English Prof. Receives MELUS Lifetime Achievement Award

By a Staff Reporter

   FRESNO, Calif. –– Professor Amritjit Singh, professor of English and African American Studies at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, was honored with the 2007 MELUS Lifetime Achievement Award Mar. 26, capping the 21^st Annual MELUS Conference held March 22-25.

He is the first foreign-born American to receive the honor.

MELUS, the Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature, honors scholars with the Achievement Award for their contributions to ethnic American literary scholarship.

When asked how he felt about the award, Singh said he felt both honored and humbled.

“I feel gratified that my work over the past 35 years in African American and ethnic American literature is being acknowledge by an organization that still means so much to me,” Singh said.

Singh was born in India and came first to the United States in 1968 on a Fulbright scholarship to earn his Ph.D. at New York University.

While on a nine-year hiatus, he moved back to India, where he taught at the University of Delhi, the University of Hyderabad, and the University of

Rajasthan, and served from 1974 to 1977 as Academic Associate and Deputy Director at the American Studies Research Center on the Osmania University Campus in Hyderabad.

In 2002, Singh was a senior Fulbright Professor at the JFK Institute of North American Studies, Freie University, Berlin, and the University of Leipzig.

After 20 years at Rhode Island College, Singh joined Ohio U. in January 2006.  He is currently co-editing a documentary history of South Asians in North America.