Susantha Goonatilake

Early life and academic career

Born in Sri Lanka during British colonization, when it was still known as British Ceylon, Susantha Goonatilake was educated at the Royal College, Colombo. Thereafter he went on to gain his BSc in engineering from the University of Colombo in 1961. After Goonatilake received electrical engineering training in the United Kingdom and Germany. He went on to gain his MSc and PhD in industrial sociology from the University of Exeter in 1971 (Master thesis: A study of the authority structure of an industrial organisation in a transitional setting: case study of a Ceylon industrial plant) and 1973 (PhD thesis: Organisational forms in post-traditional society with special reference to South Asia) respectively.

Goonatilake was a professor at the University of Exeter, Columbia University and New School for Social Research, president of the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science and he was president of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka from 2009 to 2015. Jiritsu Suru Ajia No Kagaku-Dai San Sekai Ishiki Karano Kaiho, Tokyo, Ochanomizu Shobo Publishers, 1990 (In English: A Free Asian Science -Towards Liberation of the Third World Mind; it is a Japanese translation of writings on non-European knowledge systems) Anthropologizing Sri Lanka: A Civilizational Misadventure, Indiana University Press, 2001. A 16th Century Clash of Civilizations: The Portuguese Presence in Sri Lanka, Vijitha Yapa Publications, 2010.