Jaspal Singh - NMU English

Ph.D., Comparative Literature, University of Oregon, 1998.
Master of Fine Arts, Northern Michigan University, May, 2021
Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies, Oregon State University, 1993. 
Master of Arts, English Literature, Agra University, India, 1976.
Bachelor of Sciences, General Studies, University of Delhi, 1974.

Jaspal Singh, Professor of English Literature at Northern Michigan University, received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Oregon (1998).  She was a Rockefeller Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Gender in Africa, James S. Coleman African Studies Center, University of California, Los Angeles (1998-1999).  She is the recipient of the Distinguished Faculty Award at NMU (2009-2010). In 2012-2013, Jaspal was a Fulbright Teaching and Research Scholar and spent a year in India.  Her research project focused on the representation of Sikhs in Indian Literature and Culture.

Jaspal was born and raised in Burma, lived in India and Iraq, and now resides permanently in the US and calls Marquette home. She has a son, Gautam, a daughter, Gina, and a granddaughter, Karina, who live in the West Coast. 

• Postcolonial Studies
• Comparative Literature
• Gender Studies
• African Literature and Culture
• Indian Literature and Culture
• Burmese Literature and Culture
• Turkish Literature and Culture
• Asian American Literature and Culture
• South Asian Literature and Culture
• Critical Writing and Thinking

Monographs:

Sikh Gender and Sexual Identity: Construction of Gender and Sexuality in Indian and Diaspora Writing. Forthcoming with Routledge, 2023.

Violence and Resistance in Sikh Gendered Identity. Routledge, 2020.

Representation and Resistance: Indian and African Women Writers at Home and in the Diaspora. University of Calgary Press, 2008.

Book, co-author:

Narrating the New Nation: South African Indian Writing (with Rajendra Chetty). Peter Lang, 2018.

Anthology, co-editor:

Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Turkey (with Mary Lou O’Neil). Peter Lang, 2016.

Indian Writers: Transnationalisms and Diasporas (with Rajendra Chetty). Peter Lang Publishers, 2010. 

Trauma, Resistance, Reconciliation in Post-1994 South African Writing (with Rajendra Chetty). Peter Lang Publishers, 2010.

Anthology, assistant editor. 

Voice On the Water: Great Lakes Native America Now. Northern Michigan University Press, 2011. 

Anthology, co-editor: 

Re-dux: Second Edition. A Collection Of Essays, Poetry, And Fiction For Writing 12. University of Oregon, 1994.

Peer-reviewed Chapters and Refereed Articles: 

“Competing Empires in South Africa and Burma: Alienation, Displacement and Interconnections in Colonial and Postcolonial Literature. Imbizo: International Journal of African Literary and Comparative Studies, May, 2021.

“Competing Empires in South Africa and Burma: Alienation, Displacement and Interconnections in Colonial and Postcolonial Literature." Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 2020.

"’Slow Violence’” in Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country and Zakes Mda’s Ways of Dying,” Journal of Contemporary Thought, 2016

“South African Indian Fiction: Transformations in Ahmed Essop’s Political Ethos,” Research in African Literature 42.3 (2011): 46-55.

“The Construction of Sikh Identity and Ideas of Nations/Homelands in Indian and Diasporic Imaginations.” Journal of Contemporary Thought. Ed. Prafula Kar, et al. Pencraft International, 2009.  250-261.

“Africa in India: The African Diaspora in India in Kamal Amrohi’s Film Razia Sultan.” India in Africa, Africa in India.  Ed. John Hawley. Indiana UP, 2008. 273-288.

“Memory of Trauma in Meena Alexander’s Texts.” Tracing an Indian Diaspora. Ed. Parvati Raghuram, et al. Sage Publication, 2007. 55-80.

Contrary Narrative Spaces and the Sikh Woman: Imperial Aftermaths in Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas“ and Gulzar’s Maachis,” Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory 2.2 (2006): 125-134.  

“Transnational Multicultural Feminism and the Politics of Location: Queering Diaspora in Nisha Ganatra's Chutney Popcorn, Deepa Mehta’s Fire, and Shani Mootoo’s Cereus Blooms at Night.” South Asian Review 26.2 (2005): 148-161.  

“Homoeroticism and the Construction of Alterity: On Reading A Passage to India and The Home and the World." Journal of Contemporary Thought 4 (2005): 23-44.  

"Globalization, Transnationalism, and Identity Politics in South Asian Women’s Texts.” Michigan Academician, 35.2 (2003): 171-188.  

"Representing the Poetics of Resistance in Transnational South Asian Women’s Fiction and Film." South Asian Review 24.1 (2003): 202-219.  

“Studies of Bharati Mukherjee,” Asian American Novelists: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Source Book. Ed. Emmanuel Nelson. Greenwood Press, 2000.  84-99. 

“Negotiating Ambivalent Gender Spaces for Collective and Individual Empowerment: Sikh Women’s Life Writing in the Diaspora.” Religions 10.11 (2019): 598–. Web.

Published Conference Proceedings: 

“Madness and Resistance in Postcolonial African and Caribbean Texts.” Association of University English Teachers in Southern Africa, South Africa, 2008.

"Transnationalisms and Multiculturalisms: Intersecting Pedagogies in the American Classroom." Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2006. 

"Indo-Caribbean Literature and the Politics of Location: Transnational Feminism and Identity Politics in Shani Mootoo's Cereus Blooms at Night." National Association of Asian Studies, Houston, Texas, 2004.

"Homoeroticism and the Construction of Alterity: On Reading A Passage to India and The Home and the World." Rethinking Modernity Conference. Forum on Contemporary Theory, India, 2004. 

"New and Old World Poetics: Representation and Construction of Gender Identity in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, Bernal Diaz's The Conquest of New Spain, Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands, and Rigoberta Mench's I, Rigoberta Mench: An Indian Woman in Guatemala." National Association for Latin American Studies, Houston, Texas, 2000.   

Creative Work, Short Story: 

“June Winter Days: Durban Shores.” South Asian Review. 29.3 (2008): 266-276.

"Shades of Love: English Toffee." The Offbeat: With Abandon. 8 (2008): 35-49.

"Eternal Moments.” South Asian Review. 27.3 (2007): 41-53.

Creative Work, Poetry: 

“Home is the Diasporic.” Videopoem. Hole in the Head Review. Forthcoming June 2021.

“Taunggyi Hullabaloo.” Brilliant Flash Fiction Review Journal. Forthcoming 1 June 2021.

“1966: Burma's Bureau of Special Investigations (BSI).”  Harbor Review. Forthcoming June 2021. 

"Victoria Fall," South Asian Review, 31 (2013): 21

"Moonless Burmese Nights,” The Offbeat: With Abandon. 8 (2008): 67

"Carolina Farms,” The Offbeat: With Abandon. 8 (2008): 5

"Chicken Curry Nights.” The Offbeat: With Abandon. 8 (2008): 15

"Culver City Gas Station.” The Offbeat: Tell Me Everything 7 (2007): 71.

"Indian Woman: Reflected, Constructed, Real.” Dreadlocks Interrupted!  3 (2006): 34-36.

"Ode to Narinder Virk: Lighter of Spark.” Struggle: Full Rights for Immigrants. 22 (2006): 49-51.

"Indian Woman.” South Asian Review 24.3 (2005): 69-70.

"Two Raindrops.” South Asian Review 24.3 (2005): 70-71.

"Storytelling Woman.” The Offbeat 5 (2005): 32-33.

"Hybrid Kisses.” In Other Words: An American Poetry Anthology, ed. Leslie James. Denver, Colorado: Western Reading Services, 2003. 111.

"R-E-M-E-M-O-R-Y:  Tales of a Goat-herder's Daughter, Champa, and the Magical Pot-maker." Emergences: Journal for the Study of Media and Composite Cultures. 10.1 (2000): 157-170.  

Essay

Singh, Jaspal Kaur. “Uncomfortable Truths.” Philosophy and Global Affairs, vol. 1, no. 1, 2021, pp. 46–60, doi:10.5840/pga20212187.