FOCUS SRI LANKA: CONTEMPORARY VIEWS

 

DISCUSSION

Violence and the Burden of Memory in Sinhala Consciousness

Panelists: Dr. Jagath Weerasinghe, Postgraduate Institute of Archaeology, Colombo and Senior Artist; Prof. Roma Chatterjee, Department of Sociology, University of Delhi; Dr. Dev Pathak ,Department of Sociology, South Asian University; Dr. Susan Visvanathan, Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Prof. Pradeep Jaganathan, Graduate Studies Advisor, Shiv Nadar University

 

With Prof. Sasanka Perera, Department of Sociology,  South Asian University

 

Chair: Dr. Ravi Kumar, South Asian University

 

Post-1980s Sri Lanka has been wracked by decades of civil war and political violence. This has caused deaths and destructions of considerable magnitude. Some of this violence and their consequences have been documented while many remain undocumented. How is such extraordinary institutionalized violence remembered? This discussion based on Prof Sasanka Perera’s recent book, Violence and the Burden of Memory in Sinhala Consciousness (2016) delves into the details of violence, and more importantly the memories associated with this violence. While there may be manifold attempts to erase, there are also many evocative recapitulations and representations, merging political and personal, ordinary and extraordinary, civil and artistic which negotiate with the burden of memory. 

 

 (Collaboration: Orient Blackswan)