We are delighted to inform you of  a public launch event for Sri Lanka at the Crossroads of History, sponsored by The American Institiute of Sri Lankan Studies.

The launch will feature the editors Alan Strathern (Oxford University) and Zoltán Biedermann (University College London), in conversation with Jagath Weerasinghe (Post Graduate Institute of Archaeology) and Anne Blackburn (Cornell University).  The event will be chaired by the AISLS President, Sharika Thiranagama (Stanford University), and will take place on July 11, 2018, from 4 to 6 pm, at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, 8 Kynsey Terrace, Colombo 8.

Please RSVP to kimaya.ails@gmail.com.

This month we have two new open access books that will transport you to far-away places: Sri Lanka and Estonia.

On July 2nd, we bring you The Politics and Poetics of Authenticity: A Cultural Genealogy of Sinhala Nationalism, Harshana Rambukwella’s fascinating exploration of the role of cultural authenticity in the making of nations. Placing authenticity at the heart of Sinhala nationalism in late nineteenth and twentieth-century Sri Lanka, this book argues that the passion for the ‘real’ or the ‘authentic’ has played a significant role in shaping nationalist thinking and argues for an empathetic yet critical engagement with the idea of authenticity.

July 5th brings the fascinating Remains of the Soviet Past in Estonia: An Anthropology of Forgetting, Repair and Urban Traces, the second book in the acclaimed FRINGE series. Written by Francisco Martínez, it’s a fascinating ‘transdisciplinary ethnography of post-socialist material culture and social change in Estonia’ that looks at a number of sites of interest to explore the vanquishing of the Soviet legacy in Estonia.

A fascinating read for anyone who’s ever wondered about the impact that the past has on the present.