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About the Conference
Organizers and Organizing Committee
- Academic Organizers: Chelva Kanaganayakam, R. Cheran, and Darshan Ambalavanar
- Conference Organizing Committee: Darshan Ambalavanar, R. Cheran, Francis Cody, Sudharshan Durayappah, Chelva Kanaganayakam, Srilata Raman, Prashad Sivahurunathan, Sathiya Sivahurunathan, Manoja Sivajothy, and Sivajini Sivasamy
- Community Outreach: Stefvania Sritharan
- Event Planning: Sathiya Sivahurunathan
- Graphic Design: Fathima Cader
- Media: Prashad Sivahurunathan
- Printing: Fathima Cader
- Publicity: Manoja Sivajothy
- Registration: Sivajini Sivasamy
- Translation: Sathya Thillainathan, and Neerajah Vignarajah
- Volunteer Recruitment: Shoba Subramaniam
- General Volunteers: Goji Anandarajah, Lojana Anandarajah, Kavita Bala, Seiji Fujiwara, Kajani Jegasothy, Jalajah Jokarasa, Shankar Kamalanathan, Clayton Lewis, Kajeevan Manoharan, Shiyamali Paranirupasingam, Geetha Sanmugalingam, Kuruparan Selvarajah, Gowry Sivapathasundaram, Madura Siva, Sathya Sivahurunathan, Chelvan Sivayogapathy, Pavithrah Tharmaseelan, Priya Thasan
Coordinating Committee
- Darshan Ambalavanar
Darshan is a visiting fellow at the Centre for South Asian Studies, University of Toronto. He completed his Ph.D. dissertation in the Study of Religion at Harvard University, titled "Arumuga Navalar and the Construction of a Saiva Public in Colonial Jaffna". His interests are colonial history of South Asia, religious movements and nationalism.
- R. Cheran
Cheran is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Windsor. His research and teaching interests include transnationalism, forced migration and diasporic identities as well as Tamil Studies. From 1984 to 1992, Dr. Cheran was a working journalist in Sri Lanka where he was the editor and regular columnist for a biweekly newspaper that focused on human rights reporting in the context of Sri Lanka's civil war. He has published seven anthologies of poetry in Tamil. His poems have been translated into English, German, Sinhala, Kannada and Malayalam. He is the co-editor of Thamil ini (Kalachuvadu: 2000), selected papers from the international Tamil studies and Tamil literary conference held in Chennai, India in 2000.
- Francis Cody
Frank is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. His work is broadly concerned with postcolonial statecraft and the cultural politics of written language in Tamil-speaking South India. He is now completing a project on rural literacy activism in the Arivoli Iyakkam (The Enlightenment Movement), in which he examines the centrality of written language in efforts to democratize knowledge and reshape district governance. His new project will focus on the social history and contemporary political economy of language in Tamil daily newspaper circulation in small towns and cities.
- Sudharshan Durayappah
Sudharshan teaches at the University of Toronto, Scarborough and the Royal Ontario Museum. His research interests include Hinduism in the Diaspora, Trans-Asian Religious routes of the 7-9th century A.D. and Iconography.
- Chelva Kanaganayakam
Chelva is a Professor of English at the University of Toronto. His research interests are in Southeast Asian literature, contemporary Indian and Sri Lankan writing, literature of exile and postcolonial theory. His major publications include Moveable Margins: The Shifting Spaces of Canadian Literature (2005), Counterrealism and Indo Anglian Fiction (2002); Lutesong and Lament: Tamil Writing from Sri Lanka (2001); Dark Antonyms and Paradise: The Poetry of Rienzi Crusz (1997); Configurations of Exile: South Asian Writers and Their World (1995), and Structures of Negation: The Writings of Zulfikar Ghose (1993).
- Srilata Raman
Srilata is Assistant Professor of Modern Hinduism at the University of Toronto. She works on medieval South Asian/South Indian religion, bhakti, historiography and hagiography, religious movements in early colonial India. Her publications include, "Self-Surrender (Prapatti) to God in Srivaisnavism" in Tamil Cats and Sanskrit Monkeys (2007); "Who are the Vellalars? 20th century constructions and contestations of Tamil identity in Maraimalai Adigal" in Shared Idioms, Sacred Symbols: Process, Power, and the Articulation of Identities in South Asia (2007), and "Departure and Prophecy: The Disappearance of Ramalinga Adigal in the Early Narratives of His Life" in Indologica Taurenensia (2004).
- Prasad Sivahurunathan
Prashad is pursuing a career in Engineering. Aside from technologies, his interests include an engagement with socio-political issues, particularly of the Tamil regions.
- Sathiya Sivahurunathan
Sathiya has completed a bachelor's degree in Neuroscience & Psychology and is interested in working with children in developing countries in the public health sector.
- Manoja Sivajothy
Manoja is a fourth year Management (B.B.A) student at the University of Toronto. She is currently in the accounting stream and hopes to become a public accountant in the future.
- Sivajini Sivasamy
Sivajini has recently completed her honours degree in psychology and is currently pursuing certification in Human Resources Management. In addition to her work on the conference she volunteers extensively with autistic children.