Amardeep Singh

@electrostani.bsky.social

2917 Followers 1609 Following

Professor of English at Lehigh University. Anglophone Postcolonial; Modernism; African American Literature; Digital Humanities. https://www.electrostani.com/

New York Times headline: scientists use AI to create new viruses for the first time.
Text of the opening section of an advanced contract between Stanford University Press and Amardeep Singh for a book called "The Archive Writes Back..."
Ethnicity map of Philadelphia area from the New York Times. Shows African American, Puerto Rican, Italian, and other neighborhood concentrations. Also includes suburban areas that are predominantly Mexican American, like Norristown.
"This volume seeks to explore reasons why and how official records that were listed, indexed, or known to have existed as physical objects or digital assets have been absented post-production. Silence in the archive is a widely acknowledged epistemological challenge, but absence, its faithful companion is so well accepted and established that it has received far less scholarly attention. Past studies use absence and silence interchangeably, but as a scholar of Ireland, who routinely deals with enormous gaps in the historical record, I believe that for conceptual, theoretical, and methodological reasons, it is more helpful to separate them"
Rewiring Archives: Asian American Literature in the Age ofPlatforms (Honolulu III) Chair/Discussant: Tara Fickle, Associate Professor of Asian AmericanStudies From Access to Interpretation: Rethinking Asian American Digital Archives Yanyi, Asian American Literary Archive Who has access, and why? Discussants: Anne Cong-Huyen, UC Santa Barbara The role of academic libraries in archival partnershipswith faculty and community organizations Long Le-Khac, University of California Berkeley Scrutinizing the Inequalities within Asian AmericanLiterary Canons Amardeep Singh, Lehigh University Pan-Ethnic Identity in Asian American LittleMagazines Yingying Han, University of Tennessee, Knoxville Dialogue-based archives: Activating archives throughCommunity Engagement with Asian American lawrence-minh bùi davis, The Asian American LiteraryReview Literary Programming Meets Archiving / as Archivin
"It is unsettling how often Trump affects astonishing indifference, as though the most powerful man in the world were merely a spectator to events he himself has set in motion — and who in any case has little investment in the outcome. But that curious passivity reveals a darker truth. Trump seems to believe that he, like his fantasy America, exists on a different plane, utterly untouchable by the swirl of global events. The devastating consequences of his actions are not just someone else’s fault. They are someone else’s problem, too."
Chart showing usage statistics for African American Poetry a Digital Anthology. Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Alain Locke's The New Negro, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay.
Chart from Google Analytics showing user data for Singh's Scalar project. 28,000 users in U.S., 12,000 users in China, 955 users in UK, 816 in Singapore, etc.
"At times, the self-censorship approaches dark comedy. One Smithsonian employee had removed the word “diversity” from texts and replaced it with the synonym “variety”. Diversity, after all, was a word guaranteed to provoke the ire of the Trump circle because of its association with DEI programmes. But in this particular case, “diversity” was being used in a strictly scientific context: the “diversity” of astronomical objects. Nevertheless, the employee was anxious about the word’s potentially snagging on any search engines through which the administration might run museum texts. Better, all round, to deflect the gaze."
Chart from New York Times story, showing most commonly read books in US high schools, 2024. Ray Bradbury, Shakespeare, Elie Wiesel, Harper Lee, Steinbeck, Miller's "The Crucicble," "The Great Gatsby," Lord of the Flies"
Lehigh's graduate program in English will be holding a virtual (Zoom) open house on Tuesday, October, 28th, 12:00-1:00 pm. Recommended for people interested in pursuing an M.A. or Ph.D. in English. Highlights of the program include: Small classes led by research-active faculty engaged in both traditional and public-facing scholarship. A focus on literature and social justice, designed to provide our students with critical frameworks for evaluating the ethical, political, and formal aspects of texts within and across diverse historical contexts. Fully funded degree (i.e. you pay no tuition) plus an annual stipend of approximately $28,000/year. Intensive pedagogical training and hands-on experience teaching first year writing. Opportunities for student collaboration with faculty on research and public humanities projects. Post-graduate career-planning assistance from both departmental faculty and Lehigh staff.
Marianne Moore Tricorner hat and cape
Panel: Queer Print Infrastructures in Literary Modernism I Fairfax A Chair: Sophie Yates, University of British Columbia Amardeep Singh, Lehigh University, “Queer Frenemies and the making of Fire!!: On Infants of the Spring and Gentleman Jigger” Eliza Browning, Princeton University, “Doubled Forms of Editorial Collaboration in Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven’s Poetry” Eleonora Guidi, University of Bologna, “Adrienne Monnier’s Mesures, from Paris, 1935”
Image from USA Today of bears gaining weight. Shows bears 32 Chunk and 856, both gaining considerable weight during the feeding period in Alaska in preparation for hibernation.
Photo of Toni Morrison Hall at Cornell.
Screen grab of a poem by Frances Harper: Make me a grave where'er you will, In a lowly plain, or a lofty hill, Make it among earth's humblest graves, But not in a land where men are slaves. I could not rest if around my grave I heard the steps of a trembling slave: His shadow above my silent tomb Would make it a place of fearful gloom. I could not rest if I heard the tread Of a coffie [coffle?] gang to the shambles led, And the mother's shriek of wild despair Rise like a curse on the trembling air.
Chart from Google Ngram viewer, with three search terms, "shiver," "shudder," and "flutter," applied to English fiction 1800-2022. For most of the time depicted in the chart, "shudder" is used more frequently, but in the 1950s, "shiver" passes it. By the 2020s, it is found significantly more often in English fiction than "shudder" or "flutter."
Bookshelf with African American literature collections, including Norton Anthology of African American Literature, a biography of W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes' autobiography, and others.
Self-portrait at a ski resort, with fully ice-encrusted beard. This person needs to invest in a balaclava and proper ski jacket.
Promotional photo of a red Nespresso coffee machine.
Quote from Virginia Woolf: "Perhaps this is the strongest pleasure known to me. It is the rapture I get when in writing I seem to be discovering what belongs to what; making a scene come right; making a character come together. From this I reach what I might call a philosophy; at any rate it is a constant idea of mine; that behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that we —I mean all human beings—are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art. “Hamlet” or a Beethoven quartet is the truth about this vast mass that we call the world. But there is no Shakespeare, there is no Beethoven; certainly and emphatically there is no God; we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself. And I see this when I have a shock."
Quote from Roxane Gay: "Mr. Trump’s voters are granted a level of care and coddling that defies credulity and that is afforded to no other voting bloc. Many of them believe the most ludicrous things: babies being aborted after birth and children going to school as one gender and returning home surgically altered as another gender even though these things simply do not happen. Time and again, we hear the wild lies these voters believe and we act as if they are sharing the same reality as ours, as if they are making informed decisions about legitimate issues. We act as if they get to dictate the terms of political engagement on a foundation of fevered mendacity. We must refuse to participate in a mass delusion. We must refuse to accept that the ignorance on display is a congenital condition rather than a choice. "
Google Analytics chart showing active users average over the course of a year (October 2023-2024) for Amardeep Singh's digital anthology, "African American Poetry." The total active users listed are at 104,000.
Pastiche is, like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique style, the wearing of a stylistic mask, speech in a dead language: but it is a neutral practice of such mimicry, without parody's ulterior motive, without the satirical impulse, without laughter, without that still latent feeling that there exists something normal compared to which what is being imitated is rather comic. Pastiche is blank parody, parody that has lost its sense of humor: pastiche is to parody what that curious thing, the modern practice of a kind of blank irony, is to what Wayne Booth calls the stable and comic ironies of, say, the 18th century.
Black and white image of Kamala Harris, with the text, "In Sanskrit, Kamala means LOTUS. In America, Kamala means POTUS." Meme circulating on Desi (South Asian) WhatsApp groups today; I did not create it.
We, the undersigned faculty members at Lehigh University, wish to express our support for our students who are exercising their First Amendment rights on campus related to the War in Gaza. They should be able to engage in such activity without fear of retaliation. American university campuses have long been well-known as places where students can express challenging and sometimes controversial views. As long as these views are expressed respectfully and do not constitute harassment of other individuals or groups, we believe that student engagement in the most urgent social and political questions of our day can be an important part of the educational experience they have while on our campus. We support our students’ right to engage in peaceful protest consistent with the University’s Student Code of Conduct and Principles of Our Equitable Community. Secondly, we believe that encouraging education and dialogue regarding the history of the Israel-Palestinian conflict is and should be
America, here is your son, born of your iron heel, Black blood and red and white contend along this frame of steel. The thorns deep in his brow are set and yet he does not cower, He goes with neither fears nor tears to crucifixion hour. Nor yet does hatred blur his view of mankind’s frail parade, From his commanding triple coign, all prejudices fade. The ebbing nations coalesce in him and flow as one, The bright shining rainbow sweeping back to God at set of sun! Mark well the surety of tread, the new song high in air, The new note in the nation’s throat, as permanent as prayer. America, regard your son, The Cosmopolitan, The pattern of posterity, The True American.
lack Mirrors: Science Fiction, AI, and Ethics Instructor: Professor Amardeep Singh (“Deep”) Mondays and Wednesdays, 12:10-1:25 (Drown 019) This course will survey 20th- and 21st-century science fiction and film with an emphasis on representations of Artificial Intelligence. Though many think of this as a topic especially relevant to the present moment, in fact, writers and filmmakers have been considering AI in various ways since the late 1800s. For the present course, we will focus on contemporary science fiction representations of AI by writers like Martha Wells, Kazuo Ishiguro, Sean Michaels, and Jeanette Winterson. We'll also look closely at how AIs have been represented in contemporary media, in shows like Black Mirror and films like Her and Ex Machina. What are the ethical issues surrounding the creation and use of AIs? What tools do scientists, philosophers, and social theorists offer us to help make sense of the rapidly changing landscape regarding AI? What are some likely
lack Mirrors: Science Fiction, AI, and Ethics Instructor: Professor Amardeep Singh (“Deep”) Mondays and Wednesdays, 12:10-1:25 (Drown 019) This course will survey 20th- and 21st-century science fiction and film with an emphasis on representations of Artificial Intelligence. Though many think of this as a topic especially relevant to the present moment, in fact, writers and filmmakers have been considering AI in various ways since the late 1800s. For the present course, we will focus on contemporary science fiction representations of AI by writers like Martha Wells, Kazuo Ishiguro, Sean Michaels, and Jeanette Winterson. We'll also look closely at how AIs have been represented in contemporary media, in shows like Black Mirror and films like Her and Ex Machina. What are the ethical issues surrounding the creation and use of AIs? What tools do scientists, philosophers, and social theorists offer us to help make sense of the rapidly changing landscape regarding AI? What are some likely
lack Mirrors: Science Fiction, AI, and Ethics Instructor: Professor Amardeep Singh (“Deep”) Mondays and Wednesdays, 12:10-1:25 (Drown 019) This course will survey 20th- and 21st-century science fiction and film with an emphasis on representations of Artificial Intelligence. Though many think of this as a topic especially relevant to the present moment, in fact, writers and filmmakers have been considering AI in various ways since the late 1800s. For the present course, we will focus on contemporary science fiction representations of AI by writers like Martha Wells, Kazuo Ishiguro, Sean Michaels, and Jeanette Winterson. We'll also look closely at how AIs have been represented in contemporary media, in shows like Black Mirror and films like Her and Ex Machina. What are the ethical issues surrounding the creation and use of AIs? What tools do scientists, philosophers, and social theorists offer us to help make sense of the rapidly changing landscape regarding AI? What are some likely
First stanza of a Jessie Fauset poem. Click the link to read the whole poem.
Quote from Insider magazine piece about Merve Emre linking the act of criticism to teaching.
Text from Inside Higher Ed: “Our MFA [in creative writing] students help teach the required composition classes, and it’s not clear how those are supposed to get taught without the graduate students,” said Gwen Bergner, a professor of English. “They also said that we should shift the focus of our Ph.D. program [from literary studies] to composition and rhetoric, but we’re supposed to simultaneously cut the composition and rhetoric faculty, and that’s not the specialty of the majority of the faculty and the graduate students who apply.” “It’s not clear how many people they’re counting as part of our department, and we think we have fewer people already than they say,” Bergner said.
Screenshot showing three upcoming FIFA Women's World cup matches, with a comment: "African women are about to face their COLONIZER!!"
Title Page of John Wesley Holloway's 'From the Desert' (1919). The librarian has written in "Negro Author of Georgia" by hand below the author's name.
Promotional image from the film "Meg 2: the Trench" showing a massive shark threatening a small dog. (The dog will probably be ok)