the book has come home 🙏🏽 there has been a lot about ‘A Volatile Picture’ that has been extraordinarily emotional for me, but nothing quite like bringing it back to where it all began - its home and the birthplace of photography in Lanka, Jaffna.
Vindhya Buthpitiya
@vindi-b.bsky.social
Anthropologist of War and Pictures. Conflict. Politics. Resistance. Visual Culture. International Development. Sri Lanka. http://citizensofphotography.org
Not could, will. AI needs to be treated as what it is: a destructive pilfering, disinformation and plagiarism machine that has no place in democratic societies www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
New Google Earth AI tool could fuel misinformation, experts say
Experts tell BBC Verify Google's new feature which lets people generate fake satellite images could be misused.
bbc.co.uk
Sri Lanka's then-chief of police and then-secretary to the ministry of defence have been sentenced to death (these haven't been carried out since the 70s; nowadays it means life imprisonment) for not preventing the 2019 Easter bombings despite advance warning. Fun times
The disconnect of the REF from academic reality is made again clear in that this survey is released in the midst of the summer holidays. Still unsurprising given that REF blithely continues in the midst of massive redundancies across the sector
Research Professional News@resprofnews.bsky.social · 6d agoREF 2029 director defends summer timing of policy survey as feedback exercise gets underway. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...
Because it’s Meta, you can assume that they know very well that the core market for the perv glasses is stalking (and — once they switch on facial recognition — repression) and this concern about ‘misuse’ is just Kabuki to stall calls for regulation futurism.com/artificial-i...
Meta Desperately Trying to Ban Creeps Misusing Its AI "Pervert Glasses"
Meta is vowing to crack down on creeps misusing its Ray Ban smart glasses. Whether it will be enough to regain trust remains to be seen.
futurism.com
🙃 last week, it was announced that 35 universities across the UK had founded the "Defence Universities Alliance" (DUA) as part of an £182 million investment by the UK Government in defence research, skills and careers. www.thenational.scot/news/2640197...
Universities just joined a 'defence alliance'. Here's everything wrong with it
Last week, it was announced that 35 universities across the UK, including Edinburgh, Glasgow and Strathclyde universities in Scotland, had founded…
thenational.scot
Cockroach Democracy: Unarmed and Dangerous by Arundhati Roy thewire.in/article/righ...
Cockroach Democracy: Unarmed and Dangerous - The Wire
Can all the people be fooled all the time? Can a country with a population of a billion-and-a-half be dragged around like a corpse forever? It cannot. The Cockroaches are out and about.
m.thewire.in
22/07/2026: the excavations at Chemmani have now revealed 471 (and counting) skeletons. Even on an island littered with mass graves and tens of thousands of deaths which are yet to be accounted for, these numbers are staggering.
JDS@jdslanka.bsky.social · 2w agoPhase 3 | Day 39: Today (21), under the supervision of Jaffna magistrate's court, 13 more skeletons were identified during the excavations at mass grave in Chemmani, Jaffna as the total number of bodies discovered from the site reached 467. |📷 © Kumanan Kanapathipillai / JDS
Sri Lanka's largest mass grave. The International Truth and Justice Project's report on Chemmani, published last week is very good and detailed. itjpsl.com/reports/chem...
JDS@jdslanka.bsky.social · 3w agoPhase 3 | Day 37: Nine more skeletons were discovered on Sunday (19) during the ongoing excavation in Chemmani mass grave in Jaffna, - the largest to be found in the island. With the latest findings, the total number of bodies found at the site reached 446. | 📷 © Kumanan Kanapathipillai / JDS
very happy to see a new review of our #PhotoDemos book ‘Citizens of Photography: The Camera and the Political Imagination’ (DUP, 2023) by Gabby Moser in History of Photography www.tandfonline.com/eprint/9C6Y4... the book can be found OA here: read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/3...
Citizens of Photography: The Camera and the Political Imagination
Published in History of Photography (Ahead of Print, 2026)
tandfonline.com
Gaza and the Problem of Moral Stupidity - Abdaljawad Omar: 40 years after Edward Said demanded ‘permission to narrate’, the truth from Palestine has never been more widely known. And yet the annihilation continue www.equator.org/articles/mor... via @equatormag.bsky.social
Gaza and the Problem of Moral Stupidity • EQUATOR
Forty years after Edward Said demanded ‘permission to narrate’, the truth from Palestine has never been more widely known. And yet the annihilation continues.
equator.org
Jesus. 35 UK universities quietly- without debate - joined the Ministry of Defence’s “Battlefield Alliance” which seeks to “reorientate academia towards Defence and National Security” They’re destroying the social sciences and humanities while militarising the institutions
new report from the International Truth and Justice Project on the Chemmani Mass Grave ‘We Are Still Searching’ itjpsl.com/reports/chem... #SriLanka
ITJP - ITJP
itjpsl.com
Let's remember for a sec the role of philosophy in one of Dundee's (and the world's) greatest scientists in the 20th century: D'Arcy Thompson. This mindless vandalism of academia needs to stop
Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 3w agoDundee proposes to axe Philosophy.
Looking forward to welcoming the speakers, discussants and audience of the Endemic Transformations workshop tomorrow morning @standrewsanthro.bsky.social for 2 days of discussion on how approaches to diseases as "endemics" has transformed social and multispecies relations since the 19th century
@peninternational.bsky.social raises concern over Sri Lanka using national security, customs & public order provisions to censor literary & journalistic works and calls on authorities to release all remaining copies of P. Theepachelvan's books. www.pen-international.org/news/sri-lan...
"The arts and humanities are fundamental to the flourishing of our society; knowledge gathering, critical thinking and creativity should be defended as sacred things” www.theguardian.com/education/20...
Fury over Exeter University plan to scrap dozens of humanities posts
Rowan Williams and Mark Kermode join campaign against proposed cuts for arts and social sciences
theguardian.com
delighted that the @himalsouthasian.bsky.social Southasia Review of Books podcast with @shwethasrikanthan.bsky.social is back! | Joe Sacco discusses ‘The Once and Future Riot’ and the controversy surrounding Penguin India’s decision not to distribute his book www.himalmag.com/podcasts/joe...
Joe Sacco on the book Penguin India wouldn’t distribute: Southasia Review of Books #39
The acclaimed comic-journalist discusses ‘The Once and Future Riot’, violence as a political tool, and the controversy surrounding Penguin India’s decision not to distribute his book
himalmag.com
Vandalism against HE in the UK escalates with a speed and viciousness that leaves no doubt as to the ideological motives behind it
Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · last mo.'About 150 academic roles are set to go at the south-west institution, which said it was targeting areas that are “no longer sustainable” or have seen changes in student demand.' History and English are name-checked. 1/3
could not have envisioned a better reviewer for ‘A Volatile Picture' than Shyam Tekwani who has lived this book & its photos. Enormously grateful for these words 🙏🏽 | How Photographs Defied All Attempts to Bury the Memory of Sri Lanka's War thewire.in/books/how-ph... @thewire.in
How Photographs Defied All Attempts to Bury the Memory of Sri Lanka's War
A groundbreaking study of how everyday photographs became instruments of memory, mourning and political resistance in the aftermath of Sri Lanka's civil war.
thewire.in
on researching difficult pictures in post/war Sri Lanka, how photographs are used in the fight for truth and justice, and the “volatile” nature of images, whose meanings and political uses shift over time uwpressblog.com/2026/06/22/t... @uwapress.uw.edu
The Political Work of Photography: A Conversation with Vindhya Buthpitiya
Author Vindhya Buthpitiya shares insights from the in-depth fieldwork behind her book, A Volatile Picture and discusses how photographs are vital tools for protest, solidarity, and the realization …
uwpressblog.com
Read our Q&A with Vindhya Buthpitiya @vindi-b.bsky.social, author of A VOLATILE PICTURE, on photography as witness and weapon amid civil war. She shares more about her in-depth fieldwork in Sri Lanka and reflects on the "volatile" nature of images, whose meanings and political uses shift over time.
The Political Work of Photography: A Conversation with Vindhya Buthpitiya
Author Vindhya Buthpitiya shares insights from the in-depth fieldwork behind her book, A Volatile Picture and discusses how photographs are vital tools for protest, solidarity, and the realization …
uwpressblog.com
Phase 3 / Day 31: The total number of skeletons identified at Sri Lanka's largest mass grave in Chemmani surged to 412 on Monday (22), following the discovery of 7 more skeletal remains by the forensic team working under Prof. Raj Somadeva.| 📷 © Sumithi Thangarasa
Phase 3 / Day 27 As 14 more bodies were discovered from the Jaffna mass burial site by the forensic team led by Prof. Raj Somadeva on Wednesday (17), Chemmani-Siththupaththi has now become the LARGEST MASS GRAVE ever found in Sri Lanka, with 380 bodies. | 📷 Kumanan Kanapathipillai
It’s ‘A Volatile Picture’ day! This is a book born out of war, and its pages are steeped in immense pain and loss which continue to haunt my home. I did not set out to write with hope or to gesture towards resilience and reconciliation.
Congrats to @vindi-b.bsky.social on the publication of this path-breaking book on how "in the context of Sri Lanka’s protracted civil war and its turbulent aftermath, photography has become bound to the Tamil political imagination"
Vindhya Buthpitiya@vindi-b.bsky.social · 2mo agohappy Friday ☺️ A Volatile Picture: War and the Political Work of Photography in Sri Lanka uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295... (US/Canada - summer sale!), liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/... (UK/rest of the world including Sri Lanka).
happy Friday ☺️ A Volatile Picture: War and the Political Work of Photography in Sri Lanka uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295... (US/Canada - summer sale!), liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/... (UK/rest of the world including Sri Lanka).
the book has made it home (house, family and island 🥹🙏🏽♥️) to Lanka - hard not to get a bit emotional 😭
Shwetha Srikanthan@shwethasrikanthan.bsky.social · 2mo agoGot my hands on @vindi-b.bsky.social’s book! 📖✨ Less than a week to go until publication day. Order your copy of 'A Volatile Picture': uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295... @uwapress.uw.edu + liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/... @livunipress.bsky.social
Got my hands on @vindi-b.bsky.social’s book! 📖✨ Less than a week to go until publication day. Order your copy of 'A Volatile Picture': uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295... @uwapress.uw.edu + liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/... @livunipress.bsky.social
A Volatile Picture
Photography as witness and weapon amid civil warThis groundbreaking ethnography explores how, in the context of Sri Lanka’s protracted civil war and its tu...
uwapress.uw.edu
more marvellous tetrapod reptile material from Deraniyagala! 🐊
Vindhya Buthpitiya@vindi-b.bsky.social · 2mo agostarting 🐊 summer with this beautiful 1939 first edition of ‘Tetrapod Reptiles of Ceylon’ by Deraniyagala 😍
