Prof. Arjuna Parakrama, poet, scholar, and activist, has had over the last forty years a distinguished academic career, including senior visiting fellowships at Columbia University, New York, the University of Pittsburgh, USA, La Trobe University, Australia, the US Institute of Peace, the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs, and the National University of Malaysia, as well as shorter teaching/research assignments in India and Nepal. He was a Fulbright New Century Scholar in 2007/8. 

He is currently a Senior Professor of English and Cadre Chair, and for five years served as Director, the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the University of Peradeniya. He was Dean, Faculty of Arts, and University of Colombo.

In addition to publishing many articles and monographs, and two books of poetry, he is the author of De-Hegemonizing Language Standards: Learning from (Post) Colonial Englishes about “English” (London: Macmillan, 1995). He has been a member of the Keywords Project since its inception, which, after 10 years of work, produced Keywords for Today (OUP, Sept 2018).