News

In January 2023, AISLS published a statement on Best Practices for Foreign Researchers. The document is intended to provide guidance on ethical issues in conducting research in or on Sri Lanka. It is the product of a series of conversations…

1. April 29, 2022: Photographs from Sri Lanka in the British Library and other Selected Collections. Speaker: John Falconer (Former Curator, British Library).  Discussion with Jagath Weerasinghe (PGIAR). 2. May 6, 2022: The Hugh Nevill Collection in the British Museum.  Speaker: Sushma Jansari…

The AISLS Guide to Research Libraries in Sri Lanka is designed for students and scholars in the humanities, social sciences and related fields. Each entry provides information on contact information, location and access, the scope of the library’s holdings, and…

This collection, which is available on open access through Princeton University Library and the South Asia Open Archives, documents the activity of a generation of Sri Lankan radical activists who, in their different ways, attempted to escape the claims of rival ethno-nationalisms and…

Christina Davis, The Struggle for a Multilingual Future: Youth and Education in Sri Lanka (2020). Session chaired by Daniel Bass.  Mythri Jegathesan, Tea and Solidarity: Tamil Women and Work in Postwar Sri Lanka (2019). Session chaired by Sharika Thiranagama. Sandya Hewamanne, Restitching Identities in Rural…

The American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies (AISLS) announces a new round in its Community College Curriculum Development Grants competition. AISLS seeks proposals for developing instructional materials that include Sri Lanka content, which are suitable for use in introductory classes in American…

AILS Colombo is sponsoring a talk by Mythri Jegathesan on her book, Tea and Solidarity: Tamil Women and Work in Postcolonial Sri Lanka (University of Washington Press, 2019). This will take place through Zoom on Tuesday, March 9th. The session…

The office and library of the American Institute for Lankan Studies, Colombo, will close at 4:00 PM on Friday, December 19, 2020; and reopen at 9:15 AM on Friday, January 1, 2021.

2021 Sri Lanka Graduate Student Workshops February 26 and March 12, 2021 Hosted by Cornell University CALL FOR PAPERS In February and March 2021, the South Asia Program at Cornell University will host two virtual workshops for graduate students working…

AILS Colombo re-opened at its new location on September 2nd, 2020. We ask visitors and library patrons to bring their own mask or request one from AILS staff. Alcohol-based hand sanitizer is available at the centre. We also ask everyone…

The American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies (AISLS) announces a new round in its Community College Curriculum Development Grants competition. AISLS seeks proposals for developing instructional materials that include Sri Lanka material, which are suitable for use in introductory classes in American…

The AILS Centre and Library are closed because of the coronavirus pandemic. We expect to re-open by August. Staff are available on email.

AISLS President Sharika Thiranagama will deliver two lectures on “Ethnography and Ethnographic Research Methods for Qualitative Research” on 31 August 2019, 9 am to 1 pm. Refreshments and lunch will be provided. The venue is the Post Graduate Institute of…

On August 20, 2019, former AISLS Presidents Jeanne Marecek (2001-2007) and Dennis McGilvray (2015-2017) visited the AILS Colombo Center. Pictured below (left to right) are Crystal Baines, Jeanne Marecek, Ramla Wahab-Salman, Sharmini Nagendran, Dennis McGilvray, Deepthi Guneratne, and Nilam Hameed.

American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies  CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS   GRADUATE STUDENT WORKSHOP ON RESEARCH ON SRI LANKA   Dissertation Writing Workshop Thursday, October 17, 2019 Madison, WI AISLSwill hold a small afternoon workshop for 4 or 5 graduate students in Sri…

AISLS COMMUNITY COLLEGE CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT GRANTS   The American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies (AISLS) announces a new round in its Community College Curriculum Development Grant competition. AISLS seeks proposals for developing instructional materials that include Sri Lanka material, which are…

Michael Charlesworth (Art History, University of Texas–Austin) will be delivering a lecture on “The Modern Culture of Reginald Farrer (1880-1920): Landscape, Literature and Buddhism.”  It will be held at the American Center on August 29, 2018 at 4:00 pm.  Please…

Borders: Real and Imagined 2018 Sri Lanka Graduate Student Conference November 9-10, Cornell University The 2018 Sri Lanka Graduate Conference will be held on November 9-10 at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The conference is hosted by Cornell’s South…

AISLS is sponsoring a public book launch for the volume Political Parties in Sri Lanka: Change and Continuity, edited by Amita Shastri and Jayadeva Uyangoda, and published in 2018 by Oxford University Press, Delhi.  It is available in Sri Lanka through…

AISLS is sponsoring a public book launch for the volume Sri Lanka at the Crossroads of History, published by UCL Press in London.  The launch will feature the editors Alan Strathern (Oxford University) and Zoltán Biedermann (University College London), in conversation…

AISLS President Sharika Thiranagama (Stanford University) is giving a public talk on “In My Mother’s House: Reflections on the Civil War in Sri Lanka,” at 4.00 pm on Friday, July 6, 2018, at the Department of English, University of Colombo.…

The American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies announces the 2018 AISLS Curriculum Development Grant competition. AISLS seeks proposals for developing instructional materials that include Sri Lanka material, which are suitable for use in introductory classes in American community colleges. AISLS…

The AISLS Annual General Meeting and Reception is being held in the Capital Ballroom B, Concourse Hotel, Madison, Wisconsin, at 6 PM on Saturday, October 28.  All persons interested in the academic study of Sri Lanka are welcome!

The 2017 Sri Lanka Graduate Conference will be held on October 13-14 at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Hosted for the first time by Cornell’s South Asia Program, the conference is co-sponsored by the American Institute for Sri Lanka…

It is with shock and sadness that I convey the news that Isabelle Clark-Decès, Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Institute of Sri Lankan Studies, has died in an…

The American Institute for Lankan Studies (Colombo) has announced the launch of its new online library catalogue.  Patrons will now be able to identify very easily the books held in our collection, and locate them on our shelves.  The catalog…

Field’s presentation will explore the ways in which Sinhalese lyricists and poets sought to raise the standards of song and poetry between 1900 and 1960. Garrett Field is Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology/Musicology in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and School…

The AISLS Annual General Meeting and Reception will be held in the Capital Ballroom B, Concourse Hotel, Madison, Wisconsin, on Saturday, October 22, 2016, at 7:00 PM.  All with an academic interest in Sri Lanka are very welcome to attend.

The 2016 Sri Lanka Graduate Student Conference will be held on November 4th and 5th at the Center for South Asia at Stanford University. The conference is co-funded by the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies and the Center for…

Vagisha Gunasekara begins her tenure as the Executive Director of the American Institute for Lankan Studies (the AISLS Colombo Centre) on October 3, 2016. Vagisha studies particular entanglements of gender and conflict in rapidly changing situations in the South Asia…

Dennis McGilvray, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has been elected AISLS President.  His term will run to October, 2016. McGilvray is the author of Crucible of Conflict: Tamil and Muslim Society on the East…

The life of  the distinguished anthropologist Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah (1929-2014) was celebrated in a session at the 5th AISLS graduate student workshop, which was held at Stanford University on November 7th, 2014.  AISLS would like to thank Charles Hallisey, Thomas…

AISLS is very pleased to announce the publication of A Guide to Locating Photographs of Colonial Ceylon, compiled by Benita Stambler, Coordinator of Asian Art at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida.  This guide documents…

AISLS is pleased to announce the publication of Theresa McGarry & Liyanage Amarakeerthi’s English Translations of the Reading Passages in James W. Gair & W.S. Karunatilaka, Literary Sinhala (Ithaca: Cornell University South Asia Program and Department of Modern Languages and…

The linguist M.W. Sugathapala de Silva (1931-1980) was a leading figure in the study of South Asian linguistics, producing works on the Sinhala, Sanskrit, Telugu and Vedda languages.  AISLS is very grateful to his heirs for granting us permission to…

The 2014 Sri Lanka Graduate Conference will be held on November 7th and 8th at the Center for South Asia at Stanford University. The conference is co-funded by the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies and the Center for South…

On August 1–4 2014, fourteen scholars from eight countries met near Aurangabad, Maharashtra in a workshop on Sufi shrines sponsored by six American Overseas Research Centers and organized and hosted by the American Institute of Indian Studies.  Participants included two…

Two distinguished scholars, Professor James W. Gair of Cornell University and Professor W.S. Karunatillake of Kelaniya University, worked together to promote the understanding and study of Sinhala and South Asian linguistics for nearly five decades, from 1965 until Professor Karunatillake’s…

On 14 July 2014, AISLS held a full day workshop in Colombo on the Sidat Sangara, a medieval Sri Lankan scholastic work written as a guide for the composition of Sinhala poetry. This text had a long-standing influence on Sinhala…

The American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies and the Center for South Asia, Stanford University, announce that the 5th Sri Lanka Graduate Student Workshop will take place at Stanford University on November 7–8 , 2014.  The theme for this year’s…

The 2014 annual general meeting and reception of the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies will be held on Saturday 18 October, at 6 PM, in University Rooms A/B at the Concourse Hotel, Madison WI, the site of the Annual…

AISLS has awarded four fellowships for scholars to carry out research in Sri Lanka. Catherine Becker (Art History, University of Illinois at Chicago), Miracle-performing Monks and Relocated Relics: Artistic Exchange between Buddhist Communities in Andhra Pradesh and Sri Lanka. Mythri…

AISLS has awarded a dissertation planning grant to Kalyani Ramnath (History, Princeton University) for her project on “Mrs. Senewiratne’s Suicide: Lawyers, Jurors and Medical Experts in the British Empire”.

On March 28, 2014, AISLS held a forum at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies in Philadelphia.  The topic was the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship, a transnational Sufi order established in Philadelphia in 1971. The Fellowship is based…

The AISLS center in Colombo held three workshops in 2013. “Sinhala Light-Classical Song, Sociopolitical Change, and Sinhala Literary Culture in 20th Century Sri Lanka,” convened by Garrett Field, Colombo, August 2013.  This Sinhala-language workshop comprised two panels with papers, each followed…

Over fifty persons attended the 2013 AISLS Annual General Meeting and Reception at the Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, Wisconsin. It was held on Saturday 19 October at 6 PM.  The conference program included around 35 presentations related to Sri…

On 26 September 2013, AISLS sponsored a lecture by Dennis McGilvray on “A House for Every Daughter: Tamil and Muslim Marriage in Sri Lanka Today” at Heartland Community College, Normal, Illinois.  About 80 students attended the talk.  Partial funding for…

“Changing Gender Orders in Sri Lanka: Challenge, Backlash and Change,” convened by Jeanne Marecek, Colombo, December 2012. The workshop brought together 20 scholars, students and employees of NGOs to consider the different ways in which young women from different social…

The pre-conference to the Annual Conference on South Asia was held in Madison WI on Thursday, October 11, 2012.  It featured the most recent manifestations of a film movement called the “third revolution”, whose concerns have revolved around the socio-political…

On 3 May 2012, Garrett Field, the holder of an AISLS language grant, was featured on the “100% A to Z in Youth” program on Derana TV.  The filming was done at the American Institute for Lankan Studies center in…

AISLS held a forum on “Tamil Toronto: Today and Tomorrow,” at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Toronto, 16 March 2012. Toronto is home to some 170,000 Tamils from Sri Lanka, the largest such community outside the…

This workshop, which was held in Siem Reap on 11-13 January 2012, was a joint project between AISLS and the Center for Khmer Studies. The goal was to compare the twentieth-century historical trajectories of the two countries, and consider how…

This symposium, which was held on 13-14 October 2011, was convened by Frank Korom (Boston University) and Sufia Uddin (Connecticut College). It was designed as a follow up to an earlier AISLS workshop held in Colombo in November 2010, where…

“Gender and Sexuality Studies in Sri Lanka,” 2011, convened by Jeanne Marecek and Monica Smith. The workshop juxtaposed the practical and experience-based knowledge of practitioners with the theoretically grounded knowledge of academics.

“Historical Methods,” convened by John Rogers, Colombo, 19-20 August 2010.  The workshop included presentations by Prachi Deshpande, Nirmal Dewasiri, Janaki Jayawardena, Liyanage Amarakeerthi, Bhavani Raman, Harshana Rambukwella, Ronit Ricci and John Rogers.  

“Perspectives on Sri Lanka’s Historiography,” convened by John Rogers, Colombo, September 10-11, 2009.  The workshop included presentations by Zoltan Biedermann, Alan Strathern, Premakumara de Silva, Sujit Sivasundaram, John Rogers, Mark Frost, Nira Wickramasinghe, Sandagomi Coperahewa and Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri.