Cultural Encounters and Homoeroticism in Sri Lanka: Sex and serendipity

249 Pages·2014·4.625 MB·English

by  Robert Aldrich

Cultural Encounters and
Homoeroticism in Sri Lanka
Ceylon, or Sri Lanka, was long known to travellers for its luxuriant landscapes,
colourful temples and friendly inhabitants – the island once named Serendip.
This book explores the sojourns of gay visitors from the late 1800s to the modern
day, providing a history of homosexuality, travel and cultural encounter on the
island.
The book offers profiles of major figures in Sri Lankan culture and of homo-
sexual visitors, both famous and infamous, to the island. It discusses the experi-
ences of sojourners including the Victorian social reformer Edward Carpenter
and the German naturalist Ernst Haeckel, such British and American writers as
Paul Bowles and Arthur C. Clarke, and the Australian painter Donald Friend. It
also pays particular attention to Lionel Wendt, one of the most important mod-
ernist photographers outside Europe. For these figures, an erotic appreciation of
young men whom they encountered mixed with interest in Sinhalese art, Bud-
dhist and Hindu spirituality, and the flora and fauna of the island. Their experi-
ences influenced modern writing, art and dance. Cultural influences moved in
both directions, however, and Sri Lankans also found inspiration from abroad.
The book argues that homosexuals played a major role in the transmission of
cultural influences from Sri Lanka to the rest of the world, and from the wider
world to this Indian Ocean island.
Providing an original analysis of gay cultures in Sri Lanka from Victorian
encounters to the present day, this book is the first study of Sri Lanka as a site of
gay travel. An excellent study of trans-n ational cultural exchange, sexuality and
the relationships between them, it will be of interest to academics in the fields of
Asian Studies, Colonial History and Gay and Queer Studies.
Robert Aldrich is Professor of European History at the University of Sydney,
Australia. He is the author of The Seduction of the Mediterranean, Colonialism
and Homosexuality (1993) and Gay Life Stories (2012), and the co- editor (with
Kirsten McKenzie) of The Routledge History of Western Empires (2013).
Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia
1 The Police in Occupation 8 Religion and Nationalism in
Japan India
Control, corruption and The case of the Punjab
resistance to reform Harnik Deol
Christopher Aldous
9 Japanese Industrialisation
2 Chinese Workers Historical and cultural
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Jackie Sheehan Ian Inkster
10 War and Nationalism in China
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South Asia
Hans J. van de Ven
Tai Yong Tan and
Gyanesh Kudaisya
11 Hong Kong in Transition
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4 The Australia–Japan Political
Edited by Robert Ash,
Alignment
Peter Ferdinand, Brian Hook
1952 to the present
and Robin Porter
Alan Rix
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5 Japan and Singapore in the
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World Economy
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Japan’s economic advance into
Noriko Yokoi
Singapore, 1870–1965
Shimizu Hiroshi and 13 Japanese Army Stragglers and
Hirakawa Hitoshi Memories of the War in Japan,
1950–1975
6 The Triads as Business Beatrice Trefalt
Yiu Kong Chu
14 Ending the Vietnam War
7 Contemporary Taiwanese The Vietnamese communists’
Cultural Nationalism perspective
A- chin Hsiau Ang Cheng Guan
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Japanese Nursing Profession Civilians under the Japanese,
Adopting and adapting Western 1941–1945
influences A patchwork of internment
Aya Takahashi Bernice Archer
16 Women’s Suffrage in Asia 25 The British Empire and Tibet
Gender nationalism and 1900–1922
democracy Wendy Palace
Louise Edwards and Mina Roces
26 Nationalism in Southeast Asia
17 The Anglo- Japanese Alliance, If the people are with us
1902–1922 Nicholas Tarling
Phillips Payson O’Brien
27 Women, Work and the
18 The United States and Japanese Economic Miracle
Cambodia, 1870–1969 The case of the cotton textile
From curiosity to confrontation industry, 1945–1975
Kenton Clymer Helen Macnaughtan
19 Capitalist Restructuring and 28 A Colonial Economy in Crisis
the Pacific Rim Burma’s rice cultivators and the
Ravi Arvind Palat world depression of the 1930s
Ian Brown
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Cambodia, 1969–2000 29 A Vietnamese Royal Exile in
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Kenton Clymer Prince Cuong De (1882–1951)
Tran My- Van
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‘Neo- colonialism’ or Governance in Asia
‘disengagement’? Nicholas Tarling
Nicholas J. White
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22 The Rise and Decline of Thai Collaboration, 1971–1989
Absolutism S. Mahmud Ali
Kullada Kesboonchoo Mead
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1792–1913 From the nineteenth century to
An anthology of travel writing the Pacific War
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Lars P. Laamann
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Stephen G. Haw
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Kawakatsu
43 The Impact of the Russo-
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35 Japanese–German Relations, Edited by Rotem Kowner
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War, diplomacy and public 44 Business–Government
opinion Relations in Prewar Japan
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People, princes and colonialism
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Edited by Waltraud Ernst and
in China
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The Chinese maritime customs
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Global perspectives
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Detention Camps, 1941–45
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Bruce Elleman
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Stewart Lone Hsiao- ting Lin
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Michael Aung- Thwin and 77 Lee Kuan Yew’s Strategic
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Ang Cheng Guan
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Nationalism in China
Cecilia Leong-S alobir
The Maritime Customs Service
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consequences, 1800–2000
Russian Imagination,
Kent Deng
1685–1922
To the ends of the Orient
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Darwin Stapleton and Natural resistance
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James A. Warren
Alien prescriptions?
Christopher Aldous and
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Akihito Suzuki
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Brian A. Hatcher
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Kazuhiro Takii
Tharaphi Than
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the complete texts of the Kyoto
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culture Sex and serendipity
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Communism
The second emergency,
1968–1981
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Cultural Encounters and
Homoeroticism in Sri Lanka
Sex and serendipity
Robert Aldrich