see the note from current co-chair Ko Htet Min Lwin, as follows:
This year we have great candidates running for the positions of BSG co-chair and treasurer (running unopposed). Below is a brief introduction to each candidate.
All “ordinary members” of the BSG are encouraged to vote for the Executive Committee. Ordinary Members are those persons who are considered active members of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS), registered by the BSG Secretary, and who are in “good standing” as defined by the AAS constitution.
Please submit your vote by April 30, 2024 at this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSemSt2imjEjNBdeQUAmF8xMVV4Gj84NbijD21sfZ6uX6BWBhg/viewform?usp=sharing
We also invite you to consider donating your dues to the BSG here: https://tinyurl.com/yckphy76
Candidates for BSG co-chair
Mu-Lung Hsu (PhD, Arizona State University)
“Mu-Lung Hsu has a track record of contributing to the development and success of the Burma Studies Group these last three-plus years. He has served as Secretary and contributed significantly to the expansion of BSG’s public profile in his capacity as the group’s webmaster. He has successfully organised at least two Myanmar related panels at the AAS in recent years, which serves as a strong indicator of his commitment to both the field and to the function of the BSG. His connections to NIU’s CBS and to the AAS make him an ideal person to bridge the activities of the BSG with stakeholders connected to the Center of Burma Studies.”
Naw Moo Moo Paw (PhD student in Global Studies UMass Lowell)
“I would like to nominate Naw Moo Moo Paw who is a PhD student in Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Moo Moo Paw is a member of Karen ethnic group, and grew up in conflict affected areas. She has extensive and impressive administrative and management skills (as administrative assistant at the British Council in Myanmar in the 2010s), research skills (producing various reports by CSOs and NGOs on Myanmar), language fluency in Karen, Burmese, and English, trained in advanced quantitative research methods, excelled in graduate course works, and amassed a long list of volunteering works in many areas. Her research areas are on disability and civil war. She is one of the most generous, engaged rising scholars I have seen, and will make significant contributions to the Burma Studies Groups. Most importantly, she has attended AAS and Burma studies group meeting at AAS conference every year for the past three years since she was admitted into a PhD program at UMass Lowell.”
Dr. Ma Thida (Visiting Fellow, ISEAS Myanmar Studies Programme)
“Considered one of Myanmar’s leading public intellectuals, Ma Thida is a surgeon, writer, human rights activist and former prisoner of conscience. She founded PEN Myanmar and served as its president until 2016. In 2016, she was awarded the Disturbing the Peace Award by the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation and elected as member of board of PEN International. Ma Thida was elected as chair of the Writer in Prison Committee of PEN International in 2021 and was a research scholar at Yale University’s Council on South East Asia Studies in 2021–22. She is currently a visiting research fellow at ISEAS Myanmar Studies Programme. I have complete confidence in Ma Thida that her acclaimed, unwavering commitment and dedication in justice, integrity, and pursuit of public knowledge as a public intellectual will bring a rich and refreshing leadership to Burma Studies Group.”
Candidate for Treasurer (acclaimed)
Beiyin Deng (Incoming Assistant Professor, University of Missouri)
“Beiyin Deng received her doctoral degree in Religious Studies at Arizona State University in Spring 2024 and is currently a Visiting Instructor at Grinnell College. Her research focuses on contemporary Buddhist material culture, Buddhism in Myanmar, and transnational Buddhist exchanges between China and Southeast Asia. Her dissertation, “Seeking Magnificence: Material Enchantment and the Trade of Marble Buddhist Images across the Myanmar-China border,” examines contemporary Buddhist craftsmanship in the Myanmar-China marble Buddhist image trade since the 1980s, a previously unexamined religious-economic entanglement that transcends conventional academic boundaries between Myanmar and China, Southeast and East Asia, and Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism. She has conducted archival and ethnographic research in Myanmar and China since 2018. She will take up the position of Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Missouri, Columbia, in Fall 2024.”
On behalf of BSG executive,
Htet Min Lwin
co-chair
Burma Studies Group, Association for Asian Studies
Burma Studies Group 