Maryse Jayasuriya, Ph.D.

Professor
English

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Education

B.A. Mount Holyoke College

M.A. Purdue University

Ph.D. Purdue University

Research Interests

Postcolonial literature and theory; South Asian literature; 20th and 21st century British literature; Asian American literature; Feminist criticism and theory; trauma studies; immigration.

Publications and Media Placements

Books:

Authored:

Terror and Reconciliation: Sri Lankan Anglophone Literature, 1983-2009. Lexington, March 2012.

Edited Volumes and Special Issues:

Critical Insights: The Immigrant Experience. Salem Press, April 2018.

Sri Lankan Anglophone Literature: Special Issue of South Asian Review 33.3. Co-edited with Aparna Halpé. 389 pp; December 2012.

Selected Articles and Book Chapters:

“Cumulative Trauma, Structural Racism, and Displacement in Contemporary Sri Lankan Fiction: Sharon Bala’s The Boat People and Anuk Arudpragasam’s The Story of a Brief Marriage.” Narratives of Trauma in South Asian Literature edited by Goutam Karmakar and Zeenat Khan. Routledge, 2022. 193-201.

“Ethics and Empathy in Sri Lankan Representations of Refugees.” Transcultural Humanities in South Asia: Critical Essays on Literature and Culture edited by Waseem Anwar and Nosheen Yousaf. Routledge, 2022. 366-377.

“War and Identity: Writing the Sri Lankan Ethnic Conflict.” MLA Volume on Teaching Anglophone South Asian Women Writers. Ed. Deepika Bahri and Filippo Menozzi. Modern Language Association of America, 2021. 79-97.

“Migration and Sexuality in S.J. Sindu’s Marriage of a Thousand Lies.” Diasporic Inquiries into South Asian Women’s Narratives: Alien Domiciles. Ed. Shilpa Daithota Bhat. Lexington, 2020. 95-106.

“Aspiration and Disillusionment: Undocumented Experiences in Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers.” Critical Insights: The Immigrant Experience. Ed. Maryse Jayasuriya. Salem Press, 2018. 196-208.

“Bricks, Mortar, Words: Memorializing Public Spaces Destroyed in the Sri Lankan Ethnic Conflict.” South Asian Review Volume 37.3 (2017): 25-36.

“Reading Terror, Reading Ourselves: Conflict and Uncertainty in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist.” Critical Approaches: Multicultural. Ed. Robert C. Evans. Salem Press, 2017. 249-261.

“Carl Muller’s Palimpsestic Urban Elegy in Colombo: A Novel.” Postcolonial Urban Outcasts: City Margins in South Asian Literature. Ed. Madhurima Chakraborty and Umme Al-wazedi. Routledge, 2016. 223-238.

“Legacies of War in Current Diasporic Sri Lankan Women’s Writing.” Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature Volume 10. 1 (2016): 145-156.

“Terror, Trauma, Transitions: Representing Violence in Sri Lankan Literature.” Indialogs: Spanish Journal of India Studies Volume 3 (2016): 195-209.

“Irony and Epistolary Form in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s ‘Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter’ and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s ‘The Thing Around Your Neck.’” Contemporary Immigrant Short Fiction: Critical Insights. Ed. Robert C. Evans. Salem Press, 2015. 195-207.

“Amnesia, Hallucinations and Fantasy: Narrating Sri Lanka’s Post-War Conflict in Romesh Gunesekera’s Noontide Toll and Lal Medawattegedera’s Playing Pillow Politics at the MGK.” Phoenix: Sri Lanka Journal of English in the Commonwealth XII (2015). Special Issue edited by Senath Perera.

“Womanly ‘Acts’: ‘Attaining Age’ in Contemporary Sri Lankan Writing.” South Asian Review 34.3 (2013): 121-131. Special Issue on Gender and Sexuality in South Asian Literature and Culture edited by Kanika Batra.

“Exploding Myths: Representing the Female Suicide Bomber in the Sri Lankan Context in Literature and Film.” Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and Societies 4.1 (2013): 233-257. Special Issue on Women Suicide Bombers edited by V.G. Julie Rajan.

“‘Writing is not a unilateral act’: An Interview with Vivimarie VanderPoorten.” South Asian Review 33.3 (2012): 315-325.

“Contestation, Marginality and (Trans)Nationalism: Considering Sri Lankan Anglophone Literature.” With Aparna Halpé. South Asian Review 33.3 (2012): 17-28.

“Sexuality, Class and Consumption in Punyakante Wijenaike’s Giraya.” Margins 1.1 (2011): 147-63.

“The Shadow Class”: Immigration and Class in Contemporary South Asian/American Fiction.” Journeys: The International Journal of Travel and Travel Writing. 10.1 (2009): 69-81.

“Exotic Ruses?: Sri Lanka as seen through Romesh Gunesekera’s Reef and Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost.” South Asia and Its Others: Reading the ‘Exotic.’ Ed. Atreyee Phukan and Julie Rajan. Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009. 102-22.

“‘Violence spilt blood smashed glass’: Representations of Sri Lanka’s Conflict in the Works of Jean Arasanayagam and Kamala Wijeratne.” South Asian Review 29.1 (2008): 83-102. Special Issue on South Asian Women Writers edited by Feroza Jussawalla and Deborah Weagel.