Wimal Dissanayake | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1939 Kurunegala, North Western Province, Sri Lanka |
| Nationality | Sri Lankan |
| Education | Nikaveva Vidyalaya Trinity College, Kandy |
| Alma mater | University of Peradeniya University of Pennsylvania University of Cambridge |
| Occupation(s) | writer, academic, university professor and film critic |
Wimal Dissanayake (born 1939) is a Sri Lankan writer, lecturer, and scholar ofAsian cinema and Asian communication theory.[1]
Dissanayake is from Nikaveva, a village about 35 kilometers away fromKurunegala town. Both his parents were school teachers. He attended high school atTrinity College, Kandy.[2] He studied under dramatistEdiriweera Sarachchandra.[2]
Dissanayake graduated from theUniversity of Peradeniya with aBachelor of Arts degree upon graduating from the university, which merged while he was there with theUniversity of Ceylon.[2] He then obtained anM.A. from theUniversity of Pennsylvania[2] and aPh.D from theUniversity of Cambridge. He received Fulbright and Rockefeller Fellowships. He then became Wei Lun Distinguished Professor at theChinese University of Hong Kong.[3]
He criticised the wholesale adoption of Western-based communication theory, research, and methodologies.[4][5][6] He studied the perspective and mindset of Asians in communication studies.[1] He developed Asian communication theories through studying classical Asian teachings, cultural ritual traditions, beliefs and norms.[2] He was also considered as a pioneer of having introducedpostmodernism literary theory for the benefit of Sinhalese readers. He began publishing content about postmodernism theory through Sinhala newspapers during the 1990s.[2]
He co-authored a book titled,Profiling Sri Lankan Cinema along withAshley Ratnavibhushana and it was published in 2000.[7][8]Profiling Sri Lankan Cinema was focused at analyzing the growth trajectory of theSri Lankan cinema.[9] He along with K. Moti Gokulsing, publishedIndian Popular Cinema: A Narrative of Cultural Change (2004), based on the nine decades ofIndian cinema, which had seen its own fair share of lows and highs.[10] The book also examines the impact of Indian popular cinema on the people of India as well as on theIndian diaspora community and also reviews how Indian cinema captured the attention of the international community.[11][12] Both Wimal and Gokulsing figured out six major influences that have shaped Indian popular cinema when publishingIndian Popular Cinema: A Narrative of Cultural Change.[13]
Majority of his English scholarly books were published byCambridge University Press,Oxford University Press, Minnesota, Indiana,Routledge, Duke andPenguin Books.Wong Kar-wai’sAshes of Time (2003),[14]Raj Kapoor's Films: Harmony of Discourses (1988),[15]Sinhala Novel and the Public Sphere (2009),[16]Self and Colonial Desire: Travel Writings ofV. S. Naipaul (1993)[17][18] andSholay, A Cultural Reading (1992) are regarded as some of his most notable works in English.[19] He is also known to have maintained a very close association with theHawaii International Film Festival ever since its inception in 1981, and the longstanding association was ended in 1995 after 14 years.[2] He also served as the professor of Cultural Studies at theUniversity of Hong Kong.[2] He also served as a professor at theUniversity of Hawaiʻi and also worked as an honorary professor at the University of Hong Kong.[9]
Dissanayake received the Sahithya Rathna Award from theGovernment of Sri Lanka at the 2012 State Literary Festival.[20] He was conferred with an honoraryDoctor of Letters from theUniversity of Kelaniya.[20] He was conferred with the prestigiousDeshabandu title during the2019 Sri Lankan national honours.[21][22]
On 4 December 2021, he was conferred with the Asian Communication Award for Disruptive Inquiry at the 2021 AMIC Asia Communication Awards, and he was honored with the award from the AMIC Asian Media Information and Communication Center.[1][2] He received the Asian Communication Award in the virtual edition of the 28th AMIC Annual Conference, where the winners of the 2021 AMIC Asia Communication Awards were officially announced.[1][2][23]
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