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Department of Geography

Faculty of Arts - University of Peradeniya

Dr. TG Thamali Kithsiri

Senior Lecturer

PhD (UZH, Switzerland)

  •    Department of Geography

About Me

Thamali Kithsiri joined the Department of Geography in 2011 as an Assistant Lecturer, and in 2013 she joined the permanent staff. Thamali received her BA and MA in Geography from the University of Peradeniya and PhD from Zurich in Switzerland. Thamali’s teaching interests include Human Geography. Her primary research work focuses on space and place making, identity politics, nationalism, popular geopolitics, and everyday geography.

Education

PhD

Department of Geography, University of Zurich

2021

Master of Arts

University of Peradeniya

2013

Bachelor of Arts

Department of Geography, University of Peradeniya

2010

Current Positions

A Member/ Secretary - Ethics Review Committee, Faculty of Arts

2022 - To Present

Coordinator-Master of Development Practice - Postgraduate Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences-PGIHS

2022 - To Present

Affiliated Researcher - Department of Geography, Political Geography, University of Zurich

2021 - To Present

Senior Treasurer-Geography Society - Department of Geography, University of Peradeniya

2021 - 2022

Positions Held

Editor-in-Chief, Research Congress 2023 - PGIHS

- 2023

Editor-in-chief/ PGIHS Research Congress 2022 - Postgraduate Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences

- 2022

Resource Person: Geography II (GYG 2) - General Degree Examination in Arts (External) - Centre for Distance & Continuing Education, University of Peradeniya

2015

Resource Person: Geography IV (GYG 4) - General Degree Examination in Arts (External) - Centre for Distance & Continuing Education, University of Peradeniya

2015

Member of Teaching Panel: Certificate Course in Geography for School Teachers - Department of Geography, University of Peradeniya

2014

Resource Person: Geography II (GYF 2)- General Degree Examination in Arts (External) - Centre for Distance & Continuing Education, University of Peradeniya

2014

Resource Person: Geography II (GG2) - General Degree Examination in Arts (External) - Centre for Distance & Continuing Education, University of Peradeniya

2014

Assistant Lecturer - Department of Geography, University of Peradeniya

2011 - 2013

Memberships

Member - Association of Sri Lanka Geographers

Member - British Association of South Asian Studies

2019/2020

Publications

JOURNAL ARTICLES

Kithsiri, T. N., & Hennayake, N. M. (2022). Imagining National Identity in Everyday Discourse: Reflections on Political Cartoons in Sri Lanka between 2005 and 2006. Sri Lanka Journal of Sociology, 1(2): 24 – 43.

https://arts.pdn.ac.lk/socio/research/pdf/2022_02_Nalani%20M.%20Hennayake.pdf

CONFERENCE PAPERS

Hennayake, N.M and Kithsiri, T.N (2023) Reading GOTAGOGAMA with Henri Lefebvre's Three-Dimensional Dialectics of Space. (pp. 226-230) Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Social Sciences and Languages, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka.

https://www.sab.ac.lk/icssl/2023/

PUBLISHED IN ABSTRACT FORM

Kithsiri, Thamali, Kumarathunga, Danushka, de Silva, Roshana, & Bandara, Indika (2024) 303: A Bus Journey Through Cultural Geography Approach. Documentary presented at the First Research Conference on Interdisciplinary Approaches organized by the NIIBS, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka.

https://niibs.lk/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/IRCIA-Book-of-abstracts.pdf

Hennayake, N, Kithsiri, T, & Weerasuriya, B. (2023) Yellow Robe and Saree? The Masculinity of the Everyday State of Sri Lanka. World Anthropology Congress, Delhi.

https://iuaes2023delhi.org/panelabstractsdetail.aspx?vrd=1701

Kithsiri, T.N (2022) Making Us from Them: Identity Politics in the Peripheries. Paper presented (virtually) at The Art of New Alternatives: Nation-Building and the Creation of a new Community in Contemporary Sri Lankan Art Conference at TU, Dresden, Germany.

https://tu-dresden.de/gsw/slk/anglistik_amerikanistik/englit/ressourcen/dateien/forschung/forschungsprojekte_englische_literatur/art-of-new-alternatives-2021/conference_reader.pdf?lang=en

Kithsiri, T.N (2019) Beyond Hybridity: Identity through Language. Paper presented at British Association of South Asian Studies (BASAS) at Durham University, UK.

Kithsiri, T.N (2018) Others in Others: Ethnic Identity and Deviation in a Hybrid Community in Paanama, Sri Lanka. Paper presented at 6th Sri Lanka Round Table at University of Zurich, Switzerland

Hennayake H.A.N.M and Kithsiri T.N (2016) National Identity as an everyday discourse: Reflections from cartoons. Extended Abstract presented at the International Conference on the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Peradeniya

Kithsiri T.N (2014) Sri Lanka in China’s Foreign Policy. Paper presented at the 1st International Conference on Sri Lanka in World Affairs‟ at University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Kithsiri T.N (2015) Popular Geopolitics through Cartoons. Paper presented at 2nd International Conference on Arts and Humanities. Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Kithsiri T.N and Alikhan M. (2014) Tamil Diaspora and its Impact on Sri Lanka’s International Relations. Paper presented at the 1st International Conference on Sri Lanka in World Affairs‟ at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

CHIEF EDITOR/EDITOR

Proceedings: Annual Research Congress 2023, Postgraduate Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Peradeniya.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kyMnqdraZdlIuJujNyq2u50-PIj5P0hN/view

Proceedings: Annual Research Congress 2022, Postgraduate Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Peradeniya.

MEMBER OF EDITORIAL BOARD

Proceedings: Movement Rhizome 2024-International Conference on Dance Studies. Department of Fine Arts, Faculty of Arts, University of Peradeniya.

UNPUBLISHED THESIS

‘Fifty-Fifty’: Identity Politics, Negotiations, and Transformations in Paanama, Sri Lanka. 2021. PhD Dissertation. University of Zurich

https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/213646/

Conferences

Sri Lanka Round Table

Organizing Committee Member & Paper Presented

The University of Zurich, Switzerland

September, 2018

British Association of South Asian Studies (BASAS)

Paper Presented

Durham University, UK

April 2019

Creative Work

This is a research documentary presented at the the First Research Conference on Interdisciplinary Approaches organized by the NIIBS. To site it: Kithsiri, Thamali, Kumarathunga, Danushka, de Silva, Roshana, & Bandara, Indika (Directors). 2024. “303: A Bus Journey Through Cultural Geography Approach” [Research Documentary: Online Video]. Canton Cinema. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMBKmqrC_GM&list=PLoFRtDQJF42XNrVpJgbbtYHBszStVo_gu

Cultural Odyssey is a fieldwork diary prepared by the students as part of the assessments of the undergraduate course of ‘Culture & Space’ (GGY 4048) 2022/2023. This group project includes an assembly of selected photographs students captured while in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. This work aims to understand local places within the context of culture and space. Link copy & paste: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1D9faM_bS9Q4uTQpJmYlZD1e6R-0zNf3N?usp=sharing

Teaching

GGY 4048 - Culture and Space

Department of Geography, University of Peradeniya

To Present

GGY 2029 - Political Geography

Department of Geography, University of Peradeniya

To Present

DPR 513 - Human Impact on the Natural Environment

Master of Development Practices/ PGIHS

To Present

PhD Thesis Examiner - Faculty of Graduate Studies

University of Colombo

2023

GEO 122.2 - Human Geography II

Department of Geography, Political Geography, University of Zurich

2018 FS, 2019 FS - 2021 FS

Supervisor - Bachelor Thesis

Department of Geography, Political Geography, University of Zurich

2020

External Examiner - Master Thesis

Department of Geography, Political Geography, University of Zurich

2018 - 2019

Research Interests

Space and Place Making

Identity Politics

Nationalism

Popular Geopolitics

Everyday Geography

Other Academic Contributions

Public lecture on 'මැතිවරණ ප්‍රතිඵල=මැතිවරණ සිතියම (Geography of Elections)' at Nuwara Cafe organised by Conversation Cafe Sri Lanka (සං)වාද මණ්ඩපය-මහනුවර, 08.11.2024.

Public lecture on 'ග්ලෝකල් යුගයක අපේකම' (Negotiating 'Our-ness' in a Glocalised Era) at the Kandy City Center organised by Project.Activate, Artivists Society Sri Lanka, 19.07.2024.

A speaker (Experiencing State in Everyday Life through Pilgrimages in Post-War Sri Lanka) for the Roundtable 02 titled 'Everyday Experience of the State n South Asia' for International Conference on South Asia 2023 organised by ISAS, National University of Singapore, 24.10.2023.

Guest lecture on 'Sacred Geographies: Sinhalization of Shared Spaces in Southern Sri Lanka.' Organized by the Department of Linguistic & English, University of Jaffna, 29.09.2023.

Public lecture on ‘Fifty-Fifty’: Mixed Identity in Paanama, Sri Lanka. Organized by the House of Religions in Bern, Switzerland, 2021.

Guest lecture on ‘Urbanization in the Developing World’ for Advanced Level Students organized by Sri Lanka Geography School Teachers Association, 2015.

Guest lecture on ‘Population in South Asia’ for Advanced Level Students organized by Sri Lanka Geography School Teachers Association, 2014.


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