Dr. Amrit Singh rides a camel in the Jaisalmer sand dunes on Nov 2. The ride took place soon after a beautiful sunrise, after a drive from the town of Jaisalmer to the village of Sam. The camel’s name was Shah Rukh Khan.
Dr. Amritjit Singh, Langston Hughes Professor of English, received the Award for Excellence in Global Engagement on Nov. 20. The award was presented on the last evening of the Ohio University International Education Week festivities.
The Awards for Excellence in Global Engagement ceremony is an annual event that recognizes three particularly outstanding members of the OHIO community who have gone above and beyond in their contributions to international education and cross-cultural understanding.
Introduced at the ceremony by Vladimir Marchenkov, OHIO Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts, Singh was recognized for his extensive work over the course of his 49-year career, including three Fulbright awards in Germany, Austria and Egypt, respectively, as well as for [his work at Ohio University with the Global Awareness Program series, Friends of India Foundation, and the Indian Student Association.
Singh is currently serving as a Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Scholar in India and writing a personal book on Global India while teaching a research course at the University of Delhi. See: www.ohio-forum.com/2014/09/singh-on-a-fulbright-nehru-award-to-india/.
Bob Frank, Howard Dewald, and Premjit Singh at the International Education Week ceremony
Singh’s wife and OHIO Associate Professor of Mathematics, Premjit Singh, accepted the award on her husband’s behalf.
Reading her husband’s written speech, Premjit Singh said, “I am humbled and honored to accept Ohio University’s 2014 Global Engagement Award for my commitments as a faculty member to exploiting and practicing global paradigms in my teaching, service and publications.
“Doing the global is part of my life trajectory, even the air I breathe,” finished Singh.
In India
In addition to working on his book and teaching, Singh attended a three-day conference in Jodhpur on Folklore and Literature and took some time to visit the deep desert in Western Rajasthan in early November.
“We drove through many small towns—including Pokharan, a nuclear site—in going from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer. My stay at the Dak Bungalow in Jaisalmer was quite memorable in both nice and some not so nice ways. Dak Bungalow Guest Houses are relics of colonial British India. Jodhpur Fort was quite impressive and well maintained by the descendants of the Princely Family. Jaisalmer’s historical places were intriguing, but perhaps I needed more time to appreciate them,” he says.
“The cities of Jodhpur and Jaisalmer help you realize how ‘Western’ Delhi is and how unhelpful the binaries of West and East are when applied to contemporary India. For example, young women in Delhi today exude a level of freedom and assertiveness that would be hard to imagine in India’s small towns and villages.”
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