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Amrit Singh to receive 2007 MELUS Lifetime Achievement Award
News for 02-21-2007
Amritjit Singh, Langston Hughes Professor of English and African American Studies at Ohio University, will receive the 2007 MELUS Lifetime Achievement Award at the 21st Annual MELUS Conference, March 22-25, 2007, at Fresno, CA. In her letter to Professor Singh of January 24, 2007, Melinda L. de Jesus, the current MELUS President, noted that the MELUS Executive Committee had a particularly difficult time making their decision in view of many terrific nominees in the field of US multiethnic literature. MELUS Lifetime Achievement Awardees receive a MELUS lifetime membership, as well as a plaque commemorating their achievements in ethnic American literary scholarship. Past MELUS Lifetime Achievement Awardees include scholars such as Barbara Christian, Nellie McKay, Blyden Jackson, Dan Walden, John M. Reilly, Eric Sundquist, as well as poet Michael S. Harper and novelist John Edgar Wideman. When asked how he feels about the award, Dr. Singh said he feels both honored and humbled to be in such distinguished company.
MELUS (Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature) is a national organization of college and university professors committed to expanding the definition and canon of American Literature through “the study and teaching of African American, Latino/a American, Native American, Asian American, and ethnically-specific European American literary works, their authors and their cultural contexts.” Founded in 1973, MELUS, its annual conference and its journal have become major forums for scholarship on ethnic American literatures. Professor Singh served as MELUS President from 1994 to 1997, as the Deputy Editor of its journal from 1987 to 1999, and as its Program Chair from 1988 to 1990. During his leadership, MELUS chapters were launched in Europe and India and those two organizations have had several successful international conferences. His scholarship includes several books on the Harlem Renaissance, two influential co-edited volumes on the uses of memory in ethnic American literature, and a pioneering co-edited volume, Postcolonial Theory and the United States (2000), which explores the relationship between postcolonial studies and ethnic American Studies. In 2004, he co-edited with Professor C. Lok Chua, a 600-page special double number of MELUS focused on “Pedagogy, Canon, and Context” to honor the legacy of MELUS Founder, the late Katharine D. Newman.
The award will be given at the award ceremony scheduled for noon on Friday, March 23, during the 2007 MELUS conference at California State University-Fresno. Detailed information about the conference is available here: http://webspace.ship.edu/kmlong/melus/conference.htm. You can visit the MELUS website at http://www.melus.org.