Category Archives: teaching profession

November 7, 2024 · 1:06 pm

Assorted Data on Walter T. Stace

A = A Note from Lucy McCann at the Bodleian Library in Oxford – Michael Roberts, some years back…

At the Institute of Commonwealth Studies there is an autobiography of W.T. Stace as a civil servant in Ceylon, written in 1964 – ………………see https://archives.l………………libraries.london.ac.uk/Details/archive/110022875

There is also something about his appointment to the Ceylon Civil Service in the India Office Papers at the British Library and some correspondence with him among the papers of philosopher George Edward Moore at Cambridge University Library – …………see https://archives.libraries.london.ac.uk/Details/archive110022/875

Best wishes,  Lucy

Historical view of Kandy. 

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November 5, 2024 · 11:36 pm

Race Relations in Britain Today: Readings via Responses to Audrey Maxwell’s 1998 Study

Michael Roberts 

After I presented my late departed sister Audrey Maxwell’s study, one presented in a book oAudrey Mugn Cross-Cultural Marriage edited by Rosemary Breger & Rosanna Hill [1998, Oxford, Berg] in TPS, I moved on to ……..

Audrey Mug  A ]  https://thuppahis.com/2024/10/31/addressing-audrey-maxwells-research-on-cross-cultural-marriages-in-englan/

AUDREY Mug shots B] and circulated an invitation to scholars and friends in Britain seeking critical thoughts on her study and/or reflections on relations between coloured immigants people and dinky-die BriA tons today; see ………………………………. https://thuppahis.com/2024/10/31/ag-audrey-maxwells-research-on-cross-cultural-marriages-in-englan/

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October 31, 2024 · 7:51 pm

Addressing Audrey Maxwell’s Research on Cross-Cultural Marriages in England

Michael Roberts

My elder sister Audrey’s article on cross-cultural marriages & families in England via detailed interaction with several well-educated families in Oxford in the 1990s has been reproduced in TPS in the full … https://thuppahis.com/2024/10/28/not-all-issues-are-black-or-white-some-voices-from-the-offspring-of-cross-cultural-marriages/. It has the potential to inspire comments from British folk of varied backgrounds; and, hopefully, to promote studies in the today which could mark contrasts – or similarities – now some 20-30 years later.

Audrey in an acting role at Peradeniya Uni, mid-1950s ….  & at a church in Oxford in the 2010s

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October 20, 2024 · 11:36 am

Vale Kumar David — Scholar, Critic and Activist

Rajan Philips, in Colombo Telegraph, 19 October 2024, where the title reads thus = ”Kumar David: An Accomplished Academic & A Broadminded Marxist”  … with highlights imposed by the Editor, Thuppahi

Professor Kumar David (1941-2024)

One by one the lights go out. In a span of seven months, Sri Lanka’s Engineering fraternity and the country’s progressive political fraternity have lost three of their kinds, one after another. Chris Rodrigo was the first to go in March, then it was Bahu in July, and now it is Kumar David, the oldest of the three. Professor Kumar David passed away in Los Angeles, on Monday, October 14. He was 83 years old.

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October 6, 2024 · 2:35 pm

Agriculture in the Economic Development of Sri Lanka Conference held at Gannoruwa in August 1974 — PROGRAMME Circulated Then

AGRICULTURE IN THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF SRI LANKA’ … conference organised by the Ceylon Studies Seminar ……16th – 19th August, 1974 …… at the In Service Training Centre, Gannoruwa

** The times of the mid-morning and afternoon tea-breaks will be announced each day.

** The names of the chairman and the discussant for each session will be indicated in a list which will be circulated later.

** The two papers marked with an asterisk may not be available for discussion.

A symbolic natural phenomenon from the Peradeniya University campus …. anticipaing potential prospects from the intellectual flowerings generated within its portals

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October 5, 2024 · 8:58 pm

Addressing the Place of Agriculture & the Mahaweli in Lanka’s Economic Future–In August 1974

Michael Roberts

The three-day conference on 16-19 August 1974 devoted to the topic of AGRICULTURE  IN THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF SRI LANKA held at the excellent conference facility at the Department of Agriculture at Gannoruwa – within easy distance from the Peradeniya University campus – was an instance of the capacities and vitality of the Ceylon Studies Seminar at the Peradeniya University. The CSS had been launched in 1968 and its story has been documented elsewhere with an emphasis on the roles of Prof Gananath Obeyesekere, myself, Vijaya Samaraweera, SWR de Samarasinghe, CR de Silva, typists Mrs Hettiaratchchi & Kumaraswamy and cyclostyle-operator Sathiah (see …………………………………. https://thuppahis.com/2018/10/02/nationalist-studies-and-the-ceylon-studies-seminar-at-peradeniya-1968-1970s/).

Piyasiri

CR …. and Sathiah

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October 2, 2024 · 11:45 pm

Vale — Rex Clements, A Sri Lankan Virtuoso in Many Arts

Bedgar Perera

DR. REX CLEMENTS ..… Sept. 8, 2023 was a very sad day for the 1964-68 batch of the Faculty of Agriculture of the then University of Ceylon, Peradeniya, as that was the day on which Dr. Rex Clements, our batchmate and friend passed away in Australia owing to a lung infection he was suffering from, for some time.

 

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September 30, 2024 · 7:51 pm

Fr Aloysius Pieris, s.j. on Cyril Ponnamperuma

Fr Aloysius Pieris .… now residing at the TULANA RSEARCH CENTRE in Kelaniya, Sri Lanka

Cyril Ponnamperuma was an ex-Jesuit. As a former Jesuit scholastic, he studied at Sacred Heart College in Shambaganur (in the State of Madras or Tamilnadu). The Sacred Heart College was an international Jesuit Philosophate where he secured his Licentiate in Philosophy (L. Ph), as did many of us Lankan Jesuits.

Licentiate in Philosophy is a universally recognized ecclesiastical degree (not a BSc) and had nothing to do with the Madras University. That degree corresponds to an M. Ph in a secular university today.

Ponnamperuma on right with George Keyt

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September 22, 2024 · 8:51 pm

Facing Wokism in Britain Today

Matthew Said, whose title in The Sunday Times reads “If you think we’re past peak woke, we may not even be halfway up that hill” …. with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

Unconscious bias training and cancellation are mainstream for the young. Just wait until they’re in charge.

Here’s what ‘woke’ means and how to respond to it

In the Second World War, the Allied bomber command had a problem. Aircraft were flying missions over Germany and being shot down in ever greater numbers. The top brass decided that they needed additional protection in the most vulnerable areas (it would be impossible to cover the entire aircraft, as it would be too heavy to take off). But where to place the armour? The good news is that they had plenty of data from craft that had returned to base, and they showed a clear pattern: there were lots of bullet holes in the wings and fuselage, but not so many on the cockpit and tail. The answer seemed obvious: put armour on the wings and fuselage.

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September 18, 2024 · 9:24 pm

Remembering Anagarika Dharmapala

Item presented in FACEBOOK by Peradeniya University Friends with this title: 160th Birth anniversary of Anagarika Dharmapala**

Anagarika Dharmapala a noble son of Sri Lanka who made immense sacrifices towards Buddhist revival and national upliftment in the 19th century was born at Matara on 17 Sept 1864.

He worked and campaigned with unswerving loyalty to the nationalist cause in an era when Buddhism and the national culture had reached their lowest ebb.

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