Dinidu Karunanayake
Assistant Professor of English
Department: English
Email: dkarunanayake@elon.edu
Phone number: (336) 278-6488
Professional Expertise
News & Notes
Education
Ph.D. in English, Miami University
B.A. in English, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka
Employment History
Assistant Professor of English, Elon University, since 2020
Courses Taught
ENG 4970: Senior Seminar in Literature
ENG 3800: Advanced World Literature
ENG 3820: Postcolonial Asian Literature and Globalization
ENG 1100: Writing–Argument and Inquiry
COR 1100: The Global Experience
Current Projects
I am currently co-editing a Special Issue of South Asian Review dedicated to "Global Sri Lankan Literature and Culture."
Publications
Editorial Work
(Co-guest Editor) Special Issue of South Asian Review: “Global Sri Lankan Literature and Culture.” vol. 46, no. 1-2, 2025.
Peer-Reviewed Articles
(With Maryse Jayasuriya) “Introduction: Mapping Global Sri Lankan Literature and Culture.” South Asian Review, vol. 46, no. 1-2, 2025.
“Funny Boy, Postmemorial Potentialities, and the Queer Diasporic Sri Lankan Novel.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, vol. 60, no. 3, 2024, pp. 331-44.
“Human Rights during the Pandemic—Towards an Enabling Pedagogy.” Special Issue of Journal of Liberal Arts: Humanities Instruction and Administration in a Global Pandemic: Transformative Insights for the Future of Liberal Arts, vol. 22, no. 1, 2022, pp. 48-71.
“Militant Buddhism and Post-war Sri Lankan Cinematic Memory Work.” South Asian Review, vol. 35, no. 3, 2014, pp. 79-94.
“‘What Lessons Are We Talking About’: Reconciliation and Memory in Post-war Sri Lankan Cinema,” with Thiyagaraja Waradas, in ICES Research Papers (10). Colombo: International Center for Ethnic Studies, 2013.
Peer-Reviewed Volume Chapters
“Teaching Sri Lankan American Literature in the Midwest and the South,” in Teaching Anglophone Diasporic South Asian Literature, edited by Nalini Iyer and Pallavi Rastogi. New York: Modern Language Association, 2024, pp. 174-184.
“Reclaiming Home and ‘Righting’ Citizenships in Postwar Sri Lanka: Internal Displacement, Memory and Human Rights,” in The Subject(s) of Human Rights: Critical Asian and Asian American Studies, edited by Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, Guy Beauregard, and Hsiu-Chuan Lee. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2019, pp. 180-200.
Encyclopedia Entry
“Sri Lankan American Literature and Culture,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature and Culture, edited by Josephine Lee. Oxford UP, 2019.
Interview
“On Journalists Becoming Detectives and Writers Becoming Truth-Seekers—A Chat with Shehan Karunatilaka.” South Asian Review, vol. 46, no. 1-2, 2025.
Book Reviews
Review of Keywords for Asian American Studies, by Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, Linda Trinh Võ, and K. Scott Wong, in Journal of Asian American Studies, vol. 19, no. 2, 2016, pp. 267-270.
Review of The Historical Uncanny: Disability, Ethnicity, and the Politics of Holocaust Memory, by Susanne C. Knittel, in Disability and Society, vol. 31, no. 1, 2015, pp. 139–141.
Film Review
Review of Munnel, directed by Visakesa Chandrasekaram, in Asian Ethnicity, vol. 25, no. 4, 2024, pp. 766-768.
Presentations
“Scatological Witnessing and Sri Lanka’s Era of Terror,” 24th Annual South Asian Literary Association (Online), January 2025.
“Shehan Karunatilaka’s World Bank Frictions and Reverse Readings of Global Sri Lanka,” American Studies Association (ASA) Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD, November 2024.
“Eliyakanda Wada Kandawura, the Torture Survivor Memoir, and Excremental Epistemologies,” 52nd Annual Conference on South Asia, in Madison, WI, October 2024.
“Sri Lankan American Civil War Reimaginations and Memories of the Soil,” Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) Annual Conference, Seattle, WA, April 2024.
“Postcolonial Postmemories in Karunatilaka’s The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida,” Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention, Philadelphia, PA, January 2024.
“Shyam Selvadurai’s Mapping of Queer Memory as Postmemory,” Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention, San Francisco, CA, January 2023.
“M.I.A.’s Empires of Trauma: Promise and Limits of Postmemory in Transnational Sri Lankan Pop Music” at the 50th Annual Conference on South Asia, in Madison, WI, October 2022.
(Plenary speaker) “Human Rights during the Pandemic—Towards an Enabling Pedagogy,” 18th Annual Teaching & Learning Conference at Elon University, June 2022.
“Imagining Home through Ruins of Humanitarian Warfare and Postmemories of a Global Jaffna.” Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) Annual Conference, (virtual), April 2022.
“Teaching Sri Lankan American Literature in the South.” 34th Annual Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS) Conference (virtual), April 2021.
(Roundtable) “Sri Lankan American Women’s Writing: Contemporary Investments and Future Directions,” Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention, Seattle, WA, January 2020.
“Postmemories and Postgenerations in the Work by V.V. Ganeshananthan and Jhumpa Lahiri,” Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention, Seattle, WA, January 2020.
“Life Writing and Queer Regional Imaginary in Sri Lankan America,” American Studies Association (ASA) Annual Meeting, Honolulu, HI, November 2019.
“Borderline Memories in Queer Sri Lankanstan,” 48th Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, WI, October 2019.
“Daughters on Borders: South Asian American Postmemories and Uncanny Archives,” 30th American Literature Association (ALA) Annual Conference, Boston, MA, May 2019.
“Undoing the Postcolonial Security State: Militarism, Neoliberalism and Queer Memory ‘Assemblages’ in the Work of Mistry and Selvadurai,” 33rd Annual Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS) Conference, Cincinnati, OH, March 2019.
“The Postcolonial Security State: Militarism and Neoliberal Memory in Postcolonial South Asian Literature,” Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention, Chicago, IL, January 2019.
“Militarism, Neoliberalism and the Creation of Counter-hegemonic Racialized Memories in the Work of Selvadurai and Gunesekara,” with Pavithra Tantrigoda, Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention, Chicago, IL, January 2019.
“Internal Displacement, Memory, and Human Rights in Post-war Sri Lanka.” Borders: Real and Imagined—Sri Lanka Graduate Student Conference, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, November 2018.
“Reclaiming Home and ‘Righting’ Citizenships in Postwar Sri Lanka: Internal Displacement, Memory and Human Rights.” Critical Ethnic Studies Association (CESA) Conference, Vancouver, Canada, June 2018.
“Reading America through Rushdie: Mnemonic Citizens, Human Rights, and Neoliberal Intimacies in Shalimar the Clown and The Golden House.” Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) Annual Conference, San Francisco, CA, March 2018.
“South Asian American Diasporic Postmemories and ‘Provincializing America’.” Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention, New York, NY, January 2018.
“War, Postmemory, ‘Queer Diaspora’ and Sri Lankan American Fiction.” The 46th Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, WI, October 2017.
“Their Lives, Our News: The Seasons of Trouble, Remembering for the Other and Humanitarian ‘Intimacies’ in Journalistic Memory Culture.” Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) Annual Conference, Miami, FL, April 2016
“Disidentification and Resistance in Post-War Memory Work by Thamotharampillai Sanathanan and Bandu Manamperi.” 44th Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, WI, October 2015.
“Domains of Memory in Sri Lankan-American Women’s Fiction.” Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) Annual Conference, Evanston, IL, April 2015.
“Militant Buddhism and Memory Work in Post-War Sri Lankan Cinema—Reading Sarath Weerasekara’s Gamani,” 42nd Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, WI, October 2013.
Invited Talk
“Midnight’s Daughters, Postgenerations, and Postmemories in South Asian American Writing,” Spring Lecture Series, Center for South Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison, January 2020.
Public Appearances
“What Shehan Karunatilaka’s Booker Prize win means for him and Sri Lanka,” with Marco Werman of The World (WGBH and PRX), October 18, 2022.
(Chair and moderator), V.V. Ganeshananthan’s Brotherless Night (featuring the author), The New Book Series organized by the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies, March 22, 2023.