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Neelika Jayawardane

Bio

M. Neelika Jayawardane is Associate Professor of English at SUNY Oswego, and a Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Race, Gender & Class (RGC), University of Johannesburg, South Africa. She was born in Sri Lanka, raised in Zambia, and completed her university education in the U.S.. Her research is centered on South Africa, and her scholarly publications focus on the nexus between written texts, visual art, photography and the transnational / transhistorical implications of colonialism, ongoing forms of discrimination, displacement, and migration on individuals and communities. 

Jayawardane was a recipient of the 2018 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for a book project on Afrapix, a South African photographers’ agency that operated during the last decade of apartheid. She completed a critical writing residency at the Center for Photography at Woodstock in 2021, and received support from the Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for an interdisciplinary project examining photography from Sri Lanka’s civil war period, titled, “This is not the correct history.” In 2023, she was a writing fellow at The Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Johannesburg. 

Website: https://neelikajayawardane.com 

Contact Information

Subjects

Literature in a Global Context, Contemporary South African Literature, Contemporary African Literature, Contemporary Literature of the South Asian Diaspora, Literature of Diasporic and Immigrant Communities, Transnational Memoirs, Immigrant Writing, Black British Literature, Post-colonial and Transnational Theory, Surveillance and Immigration Policies

Areas of Expertise

Photography from Africa and its diaspora, Contemporary South African Literature, Transnational Memoirs, Afterlives of war and conflict, Gender-based violence and inequalities, Visual cultures of Africa, Contemporary African Literature, Contemporary Literature of the South Asian Diaspora

Expertise Description

Media Mentions

  • “This is not the correct history”: Lacunae, Contested Narratives, and Evident…
  • Essay for Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi’s solo show at Stevenson Gallery, Amsterdam
  • Long-form critical essay for Lindokuhle Sobekwa’s first photobook, I carry Her …
  • “Art and the Limits of ‘Awareness’ Politics: Reflections on Guantánamo, this ye…
  • “Fashioning an ‘Image Space’ in Apartheid South Africa: Afrapix Photographers’ …