Harpreet Singh
Dr. Harpreet Singh is a scholar of South Asian traditions and languages at Harvard University. His scholarly interests range from studying the formation of religious identities in the premodern South Asia to the nationalization of religious communities in the modern era. He works with a wide range of sources in Persian, Sanskrit, Classical Panjabi, Brajbhasha, Awadhi and Urdu. His teaching responsibilities at Harvard have ranged from introductory courses on South Asian religions to advanced courses on religious nationalism and literary cultures. He co-founded the Sikh Coalition—the largest Sikh civil rights organization in North America—in the wake of hate crimes against Sikh-Americans after the September 11, 2001 attacks. He received a PhD degree in South Asian Religions from Harvard’s Committee on the Study of Religion and a MTS degree from Harvard Divinity School. Singh currently serves on the Board of Religious, Spiritual, and Ethical Life at Harvard; the Board of Trustees of Parliament the of the World’s Religions; the Board of Trustees at the Sikh Coalition and Sikh Scholarship Foundation; and the Advisory Boards of the Pluralism Project at Harvard, and the Institute for Asian American Studies. As a member of the Harvard Chaplains, he serves the Sikh community through the Harvard Sikh Center that he founded. His HarvardX online course, Sikhism Through Its Scriptures, is open to the public.