Michael Roberts
As I attend a friend’s funeral every now and then in Adelaide or receive mail conveying sad tidings re good friends and other acquaintances, I am reminded that I will disappear into the dust in due course relatively soon. So be it.
However there has been a lifetime of endeavour in various fields. One range of activity has been in the academic realm investigating socio-political events and processes in the world …. with particular attention directed towards my home-country Sri Lanka’s affairs.
I can leave it to friends to present my CV when I pass away. However, alongside my many articles on Sri Lankan history, two arenas have received considerable attention from my pen and fingers. These are (A) the nationalist currents inspiring the Sinhala and Tamil peoples in Sri Lanka and (B) the total commitment to political cause displayed in the world during the last century or so by some elements of the Japanese, Sri Lankan Tamil and Arab/Muslim people – a commitment that I have termed “sacrificial devotion” – in deliberate displacement of the concept “suicide terrorism”.
Here, today, I place the titles of articles and books on (A) nationalist currents. My stress is on the articles –because books carry greater weight and repose on shelves. In contrast some essays disappear into the netherworld. SO, here then is a list of some pertinent essays that circumvented the academic review process and reached print in recognised journal or edited books.
In EDITED BOOKS
2001 “Submerging the People? Post-Orientalism and the Construction of Communalism” In G. Berkemer (ed.), Explorations in South Asian History. Festschrift for Dietmar Rothermund on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, New Delhi: Manohar, pp 31-23.
2001 “Sinhala-ness and Sinhala nationalism,” in G. Gunatilleke & et. al (Eds.) A History of Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka: Recollection, Reinterpretation and Reconciliation, Marga Monograph Series, No 4. Colombo: Marga Institute.
1993 “Nationalisms Today and Yesterday,” in G. P. A. S. D. A. Samarasinghe (Ed.), History and Politics. Millennial Perspectives. Essays “in honour of Kingsley de Silva Colombo: Law and Society Trust, pp. 23-44.
1990 “Noise as Cultural Struggle: Tom-tom Beating, the British and Communal Disturbances in Sri Lanka, 1880s-1930s,” In Veena Das (ed.), Mirrors of Violence: Communities, Riots, Survivors in South Asia Delhi] ; New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 240-285.
1989 “The Political Antecedents of the Revivalist Elite within the MEP Coalition of 1956, In C. R. Dë Silva & S. Kiribamune (eds.), K.W. Goonewardena Felicitation Volume, Peradeniya University, pp. 185-220.
1989 “The Two Faces of the Port City: Colombo in Modern Times, In F. Broeze (Ed.), Brides of the Ocean: Port Cities of Asia, 1500 to Modern Times Sydney: Allen and Unwin, pp. 173-187.
1978 “Reformism, Nationalism and Protest in British Ceylon: The Roots and Ingredients of Leadership,” In P. Robb & D. Taylor (eds.), Rule, Protest, Identity, Aspects of Modern South Asia (Vol. Collected Papers on South Asia No. 1, London: Centre of South Asian Studies, SOAS. . pp. 259-280).
In ARTICLES in JOURNALS/ Edited BOOKS
2013 “Towards Citizenship in Thāmilīlam: Sri Lanka’s Tamil People Of The North, 1983–2010,” South Asia Research, 33(1), 57-75.
2004 “Narrating Tamil Nationalism: subjectivities and issues,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 27(1), 87-108.
2003 “Language and national identity: the Sinhalese and others over the centuries.,” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 9(2), 75-102.
2003 “Nomadic intellectuals: Asian stars in Atlanticland,” Social Analysis, 47(1), 170-190.
2002 “The collective consciousness of the Sinhalese during the Kandyan Era: Manichean images, associational logic,” Asian Ethnicity, 3(1), 29-46.
2001 “Dakunen sädi kotiy, uturen golu muhudai, [The fierce/vile Tamils to the south, the turbulent/unfathomable sea to the north] Pravāda 6, 17-18.
2001 “Ethnicity after Edward Said: Post-orientalist failures in comprehending the Kandyan period of Lankan history, Ethnic Studies Report, 19(1), 69-98.
2001 “The Burden of history: Obstacles to power sharing in Sri Lanka,” Contributions to Indian sociology, 35(1), 65-96.
2000 “Himself and project. A serial autobiography. Our journey with a zealot, Anagarika Dharmapala,” Social Analysis, 44(1), 113-141.
1998 “Emotion and the person in nationalist studies.,” Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities, 24(25), 65-86
1997 “Histories,” International Social Science Journal, 49(153), 373-385.
1997 “For humanity. For the Sinhalese. Dharmapala as crusading bosat,” Journal of Asian Studies, 56, 1006-1042.
1996 “Filial devotion in Tamil culture and the Tiger cult of martyrdom.,” Contributions to Indian Sociology, 30(2), 245-272.
1993 “Emotion and the Person in Nationalist Studies. in Japanese in The Shinso, Special edition on Nationalism Today ed. by T. Aoki, 127-150.
1993 “Nationalism, the past and the present: The case of Sri Lanka,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 16(1), 133-166.
1989 “Apocalypse or accommodation? Two contrasting views of Sinhala‐Tamil relations in Sri Lanka,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 12(1), 67-83.
1985 “From Empiricist Conflation to Distortion: Caste in South Asia,” Modern Asian Studies, 19(2), 343-352.
A Black Tiger ‘squad’ marching through Kilinochchiwhen the town was part of Thamileelam
Extremist Buddhist monks on agit-prop ‘work’
Yoiu have been educating us. Many thanks.