Dr. Amritjit Singh. Photo by Noopur Banerji
Dawn newspaper in Pakistan published an article headlined “US professor stresses need for mending relations among nations” about Dr. Amritjit Singh’s visit to the University of Peshawar.
PESHAWAR: Amritjit Singh, Langston Hughes Professor of English and African American Studies at Ohio University, United States, visited not only a gurdwara but also the University of Peshawar, a higher seat of learning, on a one-day visit to the provincial capital and talked to students of English Literature about identity issues and racial discrimination as two themes of modern times.
He read out Punjabi lines and its English translation from ‘The Circle of Illusion’ to stress the need for mending relations and breaking bread together for the people of different nationalities divided by a boundary that only had relevance and importance for politicians but not for common people with a common past.
Prof. Amritjit highlighted the modern day themes and issues like barriers and identity issues, which the people from different origins and religions felt all over the world.
During discussion, he talked about identity and how in terms of it a person or a group of individuals was conceived and how a person if he or she was in minority was perceived since that was also his/her identity. The student of English Literature department asked him about identity issues of Pakhtuns and Sikhs also, who lived as a minority in Pakistan. Both were misrepresented by media, they opined.
Soon the scholarly lecture turned into a discussion about identity issues of Sikhs and Pakhtuns, who are often made fun of through jokes and anecdotes. It was due to their misrepresentation in media since they lack control to counter the narrative that has developed over the years. It was also termed as one aspect of distortion of an identity and somewhat racial discrimination.
Prof Amritjit’s research and teaching interests also included African American Studies, Modernism, especially the Harlem Renaissance, 20th century American and postcolonial fiction, Richard Wright, South Asian cultures and literatures, and migration studies.
He has been working on a documentary about the history of South Asians in North America with a focus on exploring inter-ethnic paradigms, especially in relation to the parallels between the patterns of internal migrations within the Americas and immigration to the US and Canada from Europe and Asia.
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