Singh, Nikhil Pal

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Singh, Nikhil Pal

PERSONAL:

Education: Yale University, Ph.D., 1995.

ADDRESSES:

Office—University of Washington, Department of History, 315 Smith Hall, Box 353560, Seattle, WA 98195-3560. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, educator. University of Washington, Seattle, associate professor and Walker Family Professor of History.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Liberty Legacy Foundation Award, Organization of American Historians, Norris and Carol Hundley Award, Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, and Washington State Book Award, Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library, all for Black Is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy, 2005.

WRITINGS:

Black Is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 2004.

Contributor to academic journals, including the Afro-Asian Century, Radical History Review, Social Text, New Labor Forum, and American Quarterly.

SIDELIGHTS:

Writer and educator Nikhil Pal Singh earned his doctorate from Yale University in 1995. He went on to join the faculty of the University of Washington in Seattle, where he serves as an associate professor as well as the Walker Family Professor of History. His primary areas of research and academic interest include U.S. intellectual history, African American history, and the relationship between ethnicity and nationalism. He is a frequent contributor to academic journals, including the Afro-Asian Century, Radical History Review, Social Text, New Labor Forum, and American Quarterly. He is also the author of Black Is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy. Singh has won a number of awards for his research efforts, including the Liberty Legacy Foundation Award, which is sponsored by the Organization of American Historians; the Norris and Carol Hundley Award, given by the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association; and the Washington State Book Award, which is sponsored by the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library, all for Black Is a Country.

Singh's Black Is a Country addresses the question of racism in the United States since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and goes on to equate the more outward examples of racism with the more traditional, legislated instances of inequality. He examines the protests of a number of groups, and the work toward equality that was evident in the efforts of such notable black individuals as W.E.B. DuBois, Ralph Bunche, and Ralph Ellison, as well as the iconic figure of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the more radical groups, such as the Black Panthers. He also looks at the more global repercussions of many of the social and legislative decisions of the time. Richard King, in a review for the Journal of Southern History, emphasized Singh's understanding that "to draw a rigid distinction between integration and nationalism, racial consciousness and color-blindness, reform and revolution among black twentieth-century African American intellectuals is a serious mistake." Though overall King found Singh's effort somewhat uneven, he ultimately dubbed his results as "an important and provocative book." Sherri L. Barnes, reviewing for Library Journal, remarked that Singh and his work "represent a new generation of historians examining the Civil Rights Movement and race in America from fresh perspectives." In a review for Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Catherine R. Squires said of Singh: "He synthesizes contributions from African American history, postcolonial theory, critical race theory, and whiteness studies to present a comprehensive picture of how and why these freedom dreams have not become a reality."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, December 1, 2005, Carol Polsgrove, review of Black Is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy, p. 1559.

Canadian Journal of History, fall, 2006, Robert Teigrob, review of Black Is a Country, p. 406.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, February 1, 2005, D.C. Catsam, review of Black Is a Country, p. 1084.

Harvard Law Review, February 1, 2005, review of Black Is a Country, p. 1397.

Journal of American History, June, 2006, Scot Brown, review of Black Is a Country, pp. 285-286.

Journal of American Studies, December 1, 2005, review of Black Is a Country, p. 571.

Journal of Southern History, August 1, 2005, Richard King, review of Black Is a Country, p. 736.

Library Journal, June 1, 2004, Sherri L. Barnes, review of Black Is a Country, p. 153.

Race and Class, July 1, 2006, Mary Ellison, review of Black Is a Country.

Reviews in American History, March 1, 2005, "The Dialectic of Race and Nation," p. 89.

Rhetoric and Public Affairs, summer, 2006, Catherine R. Squires, review of Black Is a Country, pp. 342-344.