Gananath Obeyesekere
Sri Lankan anthropologist
Gananath Obeyesekere (2 February 1930 – 25 March 2025) was a Sri Lankan anthropologist of religion and professor of anthropology at Princeton University.
His research focused on psychoanalysis and anthropology and how personal symbolism is related to religious experience, in addition to the European exploration of 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. He did much of his fieldwork in Sri Lanka.
Life and career
Obeyesekere was born in Meegama, British Ceylon (now in Western Province, Sri Lanka). He completed a B.A. in English (1955) at the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya, followed by an M.A. (1958) and PhD (1964) at the University of Washington.
Before his appointment to Princeton, Obeyesekere held teaching positions at the University of Ceylon, the University of Washington and the University of California, San Diego. He was chair of the Princeton University Anthropology department and a professor from 1980 until his retirement in 2000.
Obeyesekere received several academic awards, including the Thomas H. Huxley medal by the Royal Anthropological Institute in recognition of his scholarly contributions to the discipline. He was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship in 1978.
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