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Dr. Prasannajit de Silva is a distinguished art historian, author, and university lecturer specializing in 18th- and 19th-century British visual culture, particularly within the context of colonial India. He is currently an accredited speaker for The Arts Society and has taught at prestigious institutions such as Birkbeck, University of London, and the University of Sussex. Key Academic Contributions
His work primarily explores how visual culture—including portraiture, landscape painting, and architecture—reflected the evolving social and racial identities of the British Raj. prasannajit de silva
Colonial Self-Fashioning in British India (Book): In this monograph, de Silva analyzes how British settlers in India used imagery to navigate complex racial boundaries and imperial identities.
Visualizing Hybridity: His research often focuses on "crossing over" and hybridity, examining paintings of mixed-race families and the physical arrangements of bungalows to understand historical patterns of intimacy.
Lectures & Public History: He frequently delivers talks on topics such as:
The Great Exhibition of 1851: Analyzing the Victorian drive for industrial design and technological prowess. Summary
British Portraiture in India: Exploring how artists captured a society straddling two disparate cultures.
John Singer Sargent: Investigating the career and shifting reputation of the famous portraitist. Educational Background
Dr. de Silva completed his doctorate at the University of Sussex in 2007, where his research focused on the art of the British in India during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
One of his most significant recent roles was serving as the Ambassador of Sri Lanka to Indonesia. During this tenure, he was also accredited as the Ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). What to look for
A crucial, often overlooked dimension of de Silva’s work is his relationship to the Sinhala language. As a poet writing primarily in English, he occupies an ambivalent postcolonial position. Sinhala, the majority language of Sri Lanka, was also the language of Sinhala-only state nationalism (instituted in 1956), a policy that deeply alienated the Tamil minority and set the stage for the civil war. De Silva’s English is not a colonial imposition so much as a strategic exile. By writing in English, he sidesteps the chauvinistic purity of “pure Sinhala” while also refusing the melancholic ghetto of Tamil lament. His English is a creole of trauma—laced with Sinhala syntax, Buddhist philosophical undertones, and the rhythms of everyday speech.
His use of the word “podi” (small in Sinhala) recurrs as a term of endearment and diminution. In one poem, a mother calls a child “podi,” but the context is one of imminent disappearance. The word becomes untranslatable in its horror; it means “little one” and “nothing” simultaneously. De Silva thus weaponizes bilingualism. He does not translate his Sinhala words for the English reader; he leaves them as opaque stones in the stream of the text. This forces the non-Sinhala reader (including many urban Sri Lankans who are English-dominant) to experience the alienation that is the very subject of the poem. Language is not a transparent medium for de Silva; it is a contested territory, a minefield of historical baggage.