“Collaborate and Discover: Break the Barriers” recently held by J’pura University
View(s):The Sri Jayawardenapura University held the one of largest conferences in Sri Lanka and presented ninety studies in the subject matter of the Humanities and the Social Sciences.
The Chief Guest of the event was her Excellency Ms. Teplitz, US Ambassador for Sri Lanka and Maldives, while UGC Chairman Sampath Amaratunge was the key note speaker. The event was held on Thursday and Friday.
The conference was themed “Collaborate and Discover: Break the Barriers.” According to the coordinator of the conference Prof. Sujeewa Hettiarachchi, the conference was an International conference in the subject matter of the Humanities and the Social Sciences.
While the conference was related to the subject matter of Humanities many other fields, also got attention like Engineering, Technology and Medicine.
“The conference is held every two years and its agenda is to bring together a platform of discussion for researchers,” he said.
The conference had three plenary speeches. One of these speeches was from Dr. Wedage, who is a historian attached to the University of Sri Jayawardenapura. His speech was titled “Fruit of the Forest and Sri Lanka’s Global Prehistory.”
This speech was based on a prominent study conducted by Dr. Wedage, which became a CNN news item.
In line with the prehistory of Sri Lanka, Professor Michael D. Petraglia of the Max Planck Institute also presented his findings. He said during the prehistoric era, there was widespread migration globally and Sri Lanka, because of its location, played a prominent part. Another point that Prof. Petraglia mentioned was that people lived in harmony with nature and they relied on subsistence only.
The first plenary speech was from Prof. Praneeth Abhayasundara, a specialist in anthropomorism and zoomorphism from the University of Sri Jayawardenapura. His speech laid emphasis on the way animals were applied to human form (Zoomorphism) and the application of human form to animals, gods and objects (anthropomorism).
Examples of Zoomorphism included in the presentation were such items like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, while examples of anthromophism included such items like Ant Man, Spider man and Cat Women.
The third and final plenary speaker was Prof. Daniel Seely, from Eastern Michigan University whose topic for the conference was on learning language from a minimalistic perspective.
The range of research was both practical case studies and qualitative studies. The benchmarking, according to Prof. Hettiarachchi had multiple priorities.
-Priyath Wijewardana