Neloufer de Mel is a professor of English at the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka and a feminist scholar.[1]

As a child, she attended Bishop's College, a private girls' school in Colombo.[2] She holds a PhD from the University of Kent, where her 1990 dissertation was entitled "Responses to History: The Re-articulation of Postcolonial Identity in the Plays of Wole Soyinka & Derek Walcott 1950–76".[3][4]

In 1999, de Mel was awarded a MacArthur Foundation grant;[5] in 2009 she was a Fulbright Scholar at Yale University;[6] and in 2019 she was a Dresden Senior Fellow at TU Dresden.[7]

Much of her work has focused on cultural studies of postwar Sri Lanka from a perspective of feminism, justice, and the arts.[7] She has written extensively on the militarization of Sri Lankan society during the quarter-century of ethnic war, and its lingering effects after the war's end.[7]

De Mel is also interested in multidisciplinary studies of gender, literature, film, and performance art and has served on juries for literature and film prizes and festivals.[3]

Works edit

Books edit

  • Women and the Nation's Narrative: Gender and Nationalism in Twentieth Century Sri Lanka (2001)[8]
  • Militarizing Sri Lanka: Popular Culture, Memory and Narrative in the Armed Conflict (2007)[9]

References edit

  1. ^ "Feminist Methodologies for Research on Masculinities in Sri Lanka". International Institute of Social Studies. December 2009. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  2. ^ "Prof. Neloufer de Mel on English Teaching". Sunday Island. 14 July 2005. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  3. ^ a b "Neloufer de Mel". DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. 16 October 2015. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  4. ^ Mel, Neloufer de (2001). Women & the Nation's Narrative. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 284. ISBN 9780742518070.
  5. ^ "Grantees: Mel, Neloufer de". MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  6. ^ "Women, Religion & Gender: Fellows". Yale University. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  7. ^ a b c "Prof Neloufer de Mel – Dresden Senior Fellow at the Chair of English Literatures". Technische Universität Dresden. 10 April 2019. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  8. ^ Mohanty, Sachidananda (2003). "Book Reviews: Neloufer de Mel, Women and the Nation's Narrative: Gender and Nationalism in Twentieth Century Sri Lanka. New Delhi: Kali for Women. 2001. 296 pages. Rs. 250". Indian Journal of Gender Studies. 10 (3): 487–493. doi:10.1177/097152150301000308. S2CID 145252709.
  9. ^ Nayar, Pramod K. (January 2008). "Book Review: Public Memory and Cultural Politics in Sri Lanka". ESS Book Review.