Kanishka Goonewardena

I  was introduced to questions concerning space, Marxism and imperialism in Sri Lanka, where I was trained in architecture at the University of Moratuwa and worked as an architect at the Urban Development Authority. After a Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, I specialized in 'critical theory' during my doctoral studies at Cornell University, Ithaca--with special attention to Walter Benjamin, Georg Lukács, Louis Althusser, Antonio Gramsci and Fredric Jameson. Since joining the University of Toronto in 1999, I have continued to draw from these and related thinkers—including anti-colonial Marxist writers such as Aime Césaire, Frantz Fanon and C. L. R. James--to study the relations of between space and ideology, the politics of planning, and the triad of nationalism, imperialism and colonialism in relation to the contradictions of capitalism. I have also written on the French Marxist philosopher Henri Lefebvre, especially his conceptions of everyday life, space and state; my current projects deal with the historical geography of the concept of imperialism, the history of left politics in Sri Lanka and Marxist thought. My teaching traverses most of these issues, especially attempts to escape the rule of capital, in such courses as GGR363 Critical Geographies, GGR460 Global Cities, Urban Planning, Critical Theory, PLA1652 Introductory Studio in Urban Design and Planning, JPG1503 Space, Time, Revolution, and JPG2150 Production of Space. I enjoy working with students who are intellectually curious about radical politics.