Search Results for: beast

Lacquer’s Cultural History of Mortal Remains

Introducing The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains, by Thomas W. Laqueur The Greek philosopher Diogenes said that when he died his body should be tossed over the city walls for beasts to scavenge. Why should he or … Continue reading

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Achtung! Achtung! The Drones are coming!

Vegas Tenold, 18 February 2018 courtesy of http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-untold-casualties-of-the-drone-war-20160218?page=2 where the title is “The Untold Casualties of the Drone War” Early one evening in November, Brandon Bryant, a former Air Force officer and perhaps the world’s most famous drone program whistleblower, … Continue reading

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IV. Bavinck on Life in Jaffna, 1994-2004: People Caught in the Middle of Two Awesome Forces

Michael Roberts Continuing with my presentation of “Motifs” from within Benjamin Bavinck’s diaries, this collection depicts the sentiments of moderate Tamils who were caught in between the main protagonists. Since Bavinck’s political leanings were firmly within this mould, the entries … Continue reading

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Siri Gunasinghe’s Sinhala Poems in English — Just Three

Translated by Ranjini Obeyesekere, in The Island, 25 February 2015 The Water Buffalo My beard on fire in haste, I was running, running down in the dawn, bearing the burdens of life all on my back; at the edge of … Continue reading

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India rejects Cultivated English. Modi’s Gujarati and Hindi swamps the old school tie

Sanjay Subramanian, courtesy of the New York Review of Books, where the title reads “India after English?”  A scene at Calcutta in mid-May 2014 —Pic by Piyal Adhikary/epa/Corbis In the days since the decisive victory of Narendra Modi and his conservative … Continue reading

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Remembering a Renaissance Man, Ediriweera Sarachchandra

Ranjini Obeyesekere Born at the cusp of the 20th century, at a moment when the cross influences of colonialism, nationalism, and Buddhist revivalism had a powerful impact on the psyche of Sri Lankan intellectuals, — generative as well as conflictual … Continue reading

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Jean Arasanayagam: Poet, Author, Activist

Sarah Hannan, in the Sunday Leader, 7 July 2013 “We’ll all become spinners of endless sagas which we read in the silence of our eternal loneliness. We inhabit the world of exile, which lies within the Babylon of ourselves” – … Continue reading

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Shulman’s Exploration of the Imagination in the South Indian Cultural World

Steven P. Hopkins, … a longer version of a review in South Asian History and Culture, vol. 3, no. 4, July 2013, pp. 424-26 (see below) Coming away from a close reading of this remarkable book one cannot help feeling … Continue reading

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Tributary Overlordship and Cakravarti Figures in Pre-British Lanka

Michael Roberts Darshani Ratnawalli* has recently deployed one motif within my book Sinhala Consciousness in the Kandyan Period, 1590s to 1815 in a perceptive and telling manner. The motif is the concept of “tributary overlordship.” Details from Robert Knox and … Continue reading

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Val Daniel’s Introduction of Ben Bavinck and Ben’s Diary over the Years of Conflict in Lanka

E. Valentine Daniel, August 2010 Modern warfare, by any measure, is a display of excess; but the excesses just before the end of wars—the excess of inhumanity, indiscriminate use of force, a frenzy of unmatched cruelty, wanton destruction and devastation, … Continue reading

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