In the past two decades, Sri Lanka as a subject of study in the social sciences and humanities has grown in popularity. Yet and still, there are only a handful of peer-reviewed book-length publications that explore the topic of Sri Lanka, and a majority are authored by social scientists. ‘Assembling Ethnicities’ stands out because of […]
~ Tamara Fernando, Jesus College, Cambridge The names Vijayabhahu, Dutugamunu, and S.W.R.D. Bandaranayake are likely more familiar to the student of Sri Lankan history than Kedoe, Selestina and Cander Wayreven. Who were these three, and why are their life histories not better known? For one thing, all of them were slaves. The 23-year-old Kedoe was […]
~ Anushka Kahandagamage, University of Otago Panduka Karunanayake’s new book, Ruptures in Sri Lanka’s Education: Genesis, Present Status and Reflections is a timely intellectual intervention with a great deal of discussion on education in the country and how it should be reformed. In a scenario where state proposals for education reforms are often based on […]
~ Anushka Kahandagamage, University of Otago The idea of slavery has a long history though it is not an issue that registers routinely in South Asian memory. This is mostly because narratives of the South Asian enslaved have become a blind spot in history. I was fascinated to read Nira Wickramasinghe’s recent book Slave […]
~ Nira Wickramasinghe, Leiden University At different moments in time Sri Lanka was known by different names, Serendib for the Arabs, Lanka in the Ramayana and other chronicles and Ceylon for the successive European rulers who conquered parts of the island from the sixteenth century. In modern day Sri Lanka there is a small and […]
~ Gitanjali Surendran, Jindal Global Law School, India On the face of it one of the greatest challenges for humans in a modern age marked by conflict, is how to live together with atl east the minimum degree of security and harmony. I once heard a Palestinian film maker say to an audience in Delhi […]
~ Sasanka Perera, South Asian University As J. Krishnamurti and Educational Practice: Social and Moral Vision for Inclusive Education edited by Meenakshi Thapan enters circulation, I wondered how to write a non-conventional review of it. That is, to outline the politics in which it can be located and read, rather than say what it contains […]
~ Nira Wickramasinghe, Leiden University In (Dis)connected Empires: Imperial Portugual, Sri Lankan Diplomacy and the Making of a Habsburg Conquest in Asia, Zoltán Biederman traces the shift from diplomacy and commerce to conquest in the island of Sri Lanka under imperial Portugal, the turning point being the dynastic union in 1580 of the crowns of […]
~ Anoli Perera, Senior Sri Lankan artist and art commentator based in Colombo and New Delhi. Yashodhara Dalmia’s book on Geoge Keyt, a pioneering 20th century Sri Lankan artist is of crucial historical importance at a time when such efforts are extremely scarce in Sri Lanka itself. When I read through the pages of Dalmia’s […]
~ Ranmalie Jayawardana, Queen’s University Belfast Perera opens Violence and the Burden of Memory with personal recollections of a childhood friend who found success in the army, and ultimately died in battle. As Perera walks the reader through memories of his old friend, pondering how he is remembered today and through whom his story is […]
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