Gananath Obeyesekere is Emeritus Professor of

Anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

and has done much work in his home country of

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

. His research focuses on psychoanalysis and anthropology and the ways in which personal symbolism is related to religious experience, in addition to the European voyages of discovery to Polynesia in the 18th century and after, and the implications of these voyages for the development of ethnography. His books include ''Land Tenure in Village Ceylon'', ''Medusa's Hair'', ''The Cult of the Goddess Pattini'', ''Buddhism Transformed'' (coauthor), ''The Work of Culture'', ''The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific'', and ''Making Karma''.

Career

Professor Obeyesekere completed a B.A. in English (1955) at the

University of Ceylon, Peradeniya The University of Ceylon was the only university in Sri Lanka (earlier Ceylon) from 1942 until 1972. It had several constituent campuses at various locations around Sri Lanka. The University of Ceylon Act No. 1 of 1972, replaced it with the Univ ...

, followed by an M.A. (1958) and Ph.D (1964) at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

. Before his appointment to Princeton, Obeyesekere held teaching positions at the

University of Ceylon The University of Ceylon was the only university in Sri Lanka (earlier Ceylon) from 1942 until 1972. It had several constituent campuses at various locations around Sri Lanka. The University of Ceylon Act No. 1 of 1972, replaced it with the Univer ...

, the University of Washington and the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

. He was Chair of the Princeton University Anthropology Department and a Professor from 1980 to the year 2000 when he retired. He has received several academic awards, the most recent being the Thomas H. Huxley medal by the Royal Anthropological Institute in recognition of his scholarly contributions to the discipline.

Debate with Sahlins

In the 1990s he entered into a well-known intellectual debate with

Marshall Sahlins Marshall David Sahlins ( ; December 27, 1930April 5, 2021) was an American cultural anthropologist best known for his ethnographic work in the Pacific and for his contributions to anthropological theory. He was the Charles F. Grey Distinguished ...

over the rationality of indigenous peoples. The debate was carried out through an examination of the details of Captain James Cook's death in the

Hawaiian Islands The Hawaiian Islands ( haw, Nā Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kur ...

in 1779. At the heart of the debate was how to understand the rationality of indigenous people. Obeyesekere insisted that indigenous people thought in essentially the same way as

Westerners The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.

and was concerned that any argument otherwise would paint them as "irrational" and "uncivilized". In contrast Sahlins argued that each culture may have different types of rationality that make sense of the world by focusing on different patterns and explain them within specific cultural narratives, and that assuming that all cultures lead to a single rational view is a form of

eurocentrism Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism) is a worldview that is centered on Western civilization or a biased view that favors it over non-Western civilizations. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western worl ...

.Moore, Jerry D. 2009. "Marshall Sahlins: Culture Matters" in Visions of Culture: an Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists, Walnut Creek, California: Altamira. pp. 365-385

Books

*''Land Tenure In Village Ceylon : A Sociological And Historical Study'', 1967 *''Medusa's Hair : An Essay On Personal Symbols And Religious Experience'', 1981 *''The Cult Of The Goddess Pattini'', 1984 *''Buddhism Transformed: Religious Change in Sri Lanka'' (with

Richard Gombrich Richard Francis Gombrich (; born 17 July 1937) is a British Indologist and scholar of Sanskrit, Pāli, and Buddhist studies. He was the Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford from 1976 to 2004. He is currently Founder-President ...

), 1988 *''The Work Of Culture : Symbolic Transformation In Psychoanalysis And Anthropology'', 1990 *''The Apotheosis Of Captain Cook : European Mythmaking In The Pacific'', 1992 *''Imagining Karma: Ethical Transformation in Amerindian, Buddhist, and Greek Rebirth'', 2002 *''Cannibal Talk : The Man-Eating Myth and Human Sacrifice in the South Seas'', 2005 *''Karma and Rebirth'', 2005 *''The Awakened Ones: Phenomenology of Visionary Experience'', 2012 *''The Doomed King: A Requiem For Sri Vikrama Rajasinha'', 2017

Videos

*''Kataragama: A God For All Seasons'', 1973
Distributed
by the Royal Anthropological Institute

References

External links

Princeton faculty page

{{DEFAULTSORT:Obeyesekere, Gananath Living people University of Washington alumni Psychological anthropologists Anthropologists of religion Sri Lankan anthropologists Princeton University faculty 1930 births