JP… that is John Prins [?] …. “FEMALE BEAUTY IN CEYLON”[1]
“Ladies! – Young ladies! Be advised; hear the warning voice of one, who although an ardent worshipper at the shrine of beauty, yet despises the false conceptions and grand-mistaken notions entertained of female beauty and elegance. Nothing can be beautiful which seeks for its perfection the destruction and perversion of nature’s laws – nothing elegant, which ascribes to itself the rules of art in opposition to the dictates of nature”……
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In support of his revelatory essay on Asian migrants to Australia in the late 19th and early 20th century, Earlson Forbes has sent TPS examples of the DICTATION TEST that was deployed to keep out the unwanted illiterate.
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BRUCE KAPFERER Interviewed by Bjørn Enge Bertelsen, …. date not up front
Photo by Andy Lewis.
Moving at the margins to re-center anthropology. From having been supervised by Bruce Kapferer and having worked on and off with him since 1999, I knew that pinning him down long enough to interview him would be hard. After weeks of failed attempts, I finally became lucky in November 2010 when I managed to abduct him to my office. This strategic re-location was necessary to escape the constant ringing of telephones in his office as well as his office’s avalanche-prone ever-expanding piles of papers and books. All verbal encounters with Bruce are characterised by a direct, critical and engaging dialogue – as also documented in other interviews (see esp. Smedal 2000). This rang true also for the dynamic of the interview situation, so only after five minutes of discussing critically recent developments in anthropology did I succeed in posing my initial question.
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NEWS ITEM at ??
Carlos Alcaraz‘s hopes of regaining his Wimbledon crown have been crushed after the World No.2 was forced to withdraw from the grass court grand slam due to an ongoing wrist injury. The Spaniard won back-to-back titles at the All England club before going down to World No.1 Jannik Sinner in last year’s decider, and his absence leaves the Italian as a massive favourite to retain his title this year.
Alcaraz has been plagued by the wrist injury since last month’s Barcelona Open, causing him to withdraw from subsequent events in Madrid and Rome. Alcaraz was already set to miss the upcoming French Open – where he is the reigning two-time champion. And he’s been forced to pull out of the upcoming grass court swing, in news that has left the tennis world shattered.
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Amira Cader: “Diverse voices and compelling storytelling define this year’s finalists [for the GRATIAEN PRIZE]” ** … DAILY MIRROR
The Gratiaen Trust, in partnership with the John Keells Foundation and with the support of the British Council announced the shortlist for the 33rd Gratiaen Prize, underscoring the continued vitality of Sri Lanka’s English literary scene at the British Council Colombo last week.
The winner of the 33rd Gratiaen Prize will be announced on 6 June 2026, at a ceremony celebrating the country’s literary talent and cultural expression.
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Five on the shortlist for Gratiaen Prize, …. May 5, 2026
The Gratiaen Trust, in partnership with John Keells Foundation and with the support of the British Council, announced the shortlist for the 33rd Gratiaen Prize on Monday evening. This year, a record number of entries highlighted the energy and creativity in Sri Lankan writing in English.
The five shortlisted works cover a wide range of genres, including historical fiction, contemporary satire, lyrical prose, and experimental poetry.
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Maya Hobart, in The Guardian newspaper, 9 October 2025 “Angela Hobart obituary” … with the highlights being impositions by The Editor, Thuppahi
My mother, Angela Hobart, who has died aged 86, was a social anthropologist who specialised in the study of the sacred art of Balinese shadow puppetry, by which poet-priests tell stories, projecting shadows of puppets at night under the flickering light of a coconut oil lamp.
She first encountered shadow puppetry when living in Bali in the early 1970s, and conducted research into the topic for many years afterwards, resulting in two books on the subject, Dancing Shadows of Bali: Theatre and Myth (1987) and Healing Performances of Bali: Between Darkness and Light (2005).
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Five Italians, including a professor and her 20-year-old daughter, died during a scuba diving excursion in the Maldives. An investigation is underway into what went wrong.
Muriel Oddenino/Facebook; Greenpeace via AP; Albatros Top Boat; Federico Gualtieri/Facebook; Instagram
Four Italian tourists, all experienced divers, and their instructor set out on a scuba excursion May 14 in the Maldives to explore a sea cave. None of them survived the journey.
The body of instructor Gianluca Benedetti was recovered later that day from the mouth of a cave in the archipelagic country’s Vaavu Atoll. The four others—Monica Montefalcone and her daughter Giorgia Sommacal, Federico Gualtieri and Muriel Oddenino—were found inside the cave May 18, the culmination of a multi-agency search effort that was postponed May 15 by bad weather and temporarily suspended the next day after a Maldivian military diver died during the recovery mission.
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Migrant and other Arrivals from Ceylon/Sri Lanka to Australia during the second half of the 20th century have been well documented. From the post 2nd World War inflow of genealogy tested Burghers; to the later inflow of professionals; the Family Reunion, refugee and skilled migrant intakes; many of differing status and age have made it across by ocean liner, leaky boat and airplane to Australia. This is not their story.
What is presented here is a glimpse of one aspect of the lives of individuals who came to Australia from Ceylon in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many of these Ceylonese arrived before Australia became an Independent Nation.
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Noel Nadesan: “The passing of DBS Jeyaraj marks a profound loss in the pursuit of truth and integrity in journalism” …..https://noelnadesan.com/2026/05/18/the-passing-of-dbs-jeyaraj-marks-a-profound-loss-in-the-pursuit-of-truth-and-integrity-in-journalism/?fbclid=IwY2xjawR3qN5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4Mj ...with highlight being the hand of The Editor, Thuppahi
A seasoned journalist from the Sri Lankan Tamil community, he was far more than a reporter. He was a perceptive social observer whose work reflected both courage and clarity. His writing was defined by honesty—he remained faithful to his stories without embellishment or distortion. Even when one disagreed with his perspectives, his commitment to truthful reporting was never in doubt.
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thuppahi
