Seminar: Portuguese intercultural interactions in Asia

Portuguese intercultural interactions in Asia: reflections on religion

Speaker: Professor Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya

Respondent: Dr Vanessa Paloma Elbaz (Faculty of Music)

Portuguese trade expansion into unfamiliar lands inevitably led to intercultural interactions. These are manifested in an array of cultural spheres—both material and immaterial. A Portuguese lingua franca played a crucial role in these interactions. Less recognised are the vibrant musical flows which resonate within Luso-Asian spaces and beyond.

This presentation will focus on the Indian Ocean island of Sri Lanka where the Portuguese legacies are eclipsed due to the Dutch and British waves that followed. The Portuguese legacy is alive through the Catholic church and the devout Catholic communities of various ethnicities who are identified as “Portuguese”. Both the Portuguese and the Sri Lankans were unaccustomed to each other’s religions. Despite the religious turmoil that followed the changes in political scenarios, Catholics form the most numerous Christian group in contemporary Sri Lanka.

What were the regional and local dynamics that enabled the Catholic church to survive? How was Catholicism received in a Buddhist-Hindu society? Were the practices in Catholicism familiar to Sri Lankans? What role did caste play in driving conversions? How did caste intersect with Buddhist-Hindu-Christian ideologies?

About the speaker

Professor Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya, PhD, FRAS, is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London. She is also a Senior Associate at Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge. Shihan chairs the Sri Lanka National Committee on Intangible Cultural Heritage for the International Council on Monuments and Sites. She is a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of International Relations at the Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan, and an elected Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. 

Shihan’s research encompasses commerce, migration, cultural exchange, linguistics, literary studies and ethnomusicology. Publications include six monographs, one co-authored book, four edited books, twenty-eight book chapters, sixty-one articles in academic journals, nine encyclopedia entries and four essays.  She has also produced four ethnographical films.

Practicalities

• A buffet lunch (suitable for vegans) will be provided in advance of this seminar. Please come to the Selwyn Room from 1:30pm for a chance to meet Professor de Silva, the seminar convenor (Dr Giles Waller) and others.

• This seminar will not be available to audit online.