Dr Jude Lal Fernando
Post-Doctoral Scholar in International Peace Studies
Dr. Jude Lal Fernando is a post-doctoral research fellow and lecturer at the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin. He brings praxis-based experience to the academic context in the fields of interreligious studies and peace studies. His main research interests are religion, peace, and conflict, with a specific focus on the role of interreligious dialogue in peace-building, and ethno-nationalisms and geopolitics, focusing on Sri Lanka in particular, and South Asia more generally. His research has been published as journal articles and book chapters, presented at international conferences in Asia, Latin America, and Europe. Some of these have been translated into German, French, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Dr. Fernando is currently the recipient of a five-year research fellowship (2010-2015), examining issues in interreligious dialogue, and the emerging currents of globalisation in Europe and Asia. He is funded by the three institutes in which he teaches – The Irish School of Ecumenics (ISE Trust), Trinity College, Carlow College, and the Priory Institute, Tallaght, where he also teaches. As a student at the Irish School of Ecumenics, his M.Phil. thesis received the James Haire Prize for best dissertation in 2004-2005, and was subsequently published as a monograph under the title A Paradigm for a Peace Movement: Thich Nhat Hanh and Martin Luther King Jr. He was awarded a postgraduate scholarship from Trinity College Dublin to continue his studies, and his doctoral research on Dynamics of Essentialist Representations of Nationhood and the Politics of Interpretation: The Role of Religion in the Making and the Unmaking of the Sri Lankan State, (Trinity College Dublin: 2008) is being prepared for publication. His post-doctoral research, conducted from 2008 through 2010, is entitled A Comparative Analysis: Geo-Politics of Peace and Conflict in Sri Lanka and Northern Ireland.
Dr. Fernando’s teaching duties comprise modules and individual lectures, across the four post-graduate programmes at the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin both in Dublin (International Peace Studies, Intercultural Theology and Interreligious Studies, and Conflict and Dispute Resolution) and Belfast (Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation).
Dr. Fernando is originally from Sri Lanka, where, before returning to full-time academic life in 2004, he was engaged in a range of civil society initiatives, both secular and faith-based, for over 15 years prior to his arrival in Ireland in 2004. He has been a member of Tulana, the Centre for Interreligious Dialogue and Research in Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, and has been involved in Buddhist-Hindu-Christian-Muslim dialogue under the mentorship of renowned Asian scholar, Professor Aloysius Pieris. Dr. Fernando is a founding member of two peace-building community-based journals, Kithusara (in Sinhala) and Oliyai Nokki (in Tamil) which explore potential in religions for a just peace. He was the national coordinator of the All-Ceylon Fisherfolk Trade Union, and a member of the Hiru Group, raising public awareness in Sri Lanka regarding the need for a negotiated political settlement to the ethno-nationalist conflict. In Ireland, Dr. Fernando coordinates the Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka, which explores the lessons of the Irish peace process for Sri Lanka. He was also co-coordinator of the People’s Tribunal on Sri Lanka, held at Trinity College Dublin in January 2010.
Areas of expertise
Issues in Buddhist-Christian Dialogue; Religion, the Public Sphere, and Peace-Building; Geo-Politics and Identity Politics (ethno-nationalisms); and Comparative Analysis of Peace and Conflict in Sri Lanka and Northern Ireland.
Modules taught
1) Issues in Buddhist-Christian Dialogue; 2) Ethics, Social Theory, and Ecumenical Theology; 3) Peace and Conflict in South Asia; and 4) Armed Conflict, Peace-Building, and Development; 5) Religion and Ethics in a Pluralist World.
Languages
Sinhala, Tamil and English.
Education
Ph.D., Trinity College Dublin, 2008
M.Phil., Trinity College Dublin, 2005
B.Ph., Urbanianum University Rome, 1985
B.Th., Urbanianum University Rome, 1989
Contact details
Email: fernanla@tcd.ie
Direct Tel: +353. (01) 1 896 4785
General Tel: +353 (0) 1 8964770, Ext. 4785
Fax: +353 (0) 1 672 5024
Select publications
- A Paradigm for a Peace Movement: Thich Nhat Hanh and Martin Luther King Jr. Dublin: The Columba Press, 2007
- ‘Complementarity or Divide? Enhancing Difference in Buddhist-Christian Dialogue: In Search of a Just Peace in Sri Lanka’, in Studies in Intereligious Dialogue ( 2011), Vol.21, No.2, pp.170-187
- ‘Im Namen des Einheitsstaates... : Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) versus Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU)’, in Südasien (2009),Vol. 29, No.3, pp. 46-50