please see the letter from Professor Justin Watkins about the imminent termination of Burmese at SOAS, and please write to SOAS here:

Dear Colleagues and friends in Burma Studies –

With concern and sadness I’m sharing the news that the post of Professor of Burmese at SOAS, University of London, has been scheduled for termination and, if things go as SOAS plans, more than a century of scholarship and research in the lanɡuaɡes and linɡuistics of Myanmar and mainland SEAsia will draw to an end in just over a month. Some very limited Burmese language teaching may continue for now, but not by me, even after 23 years of service. It is some comfort that dear ဆရာကြီး John Okell is not alive to see his legacy being dismantled.

It’s not clear why the Professor of Burmese post has been selected for removal, now that SOAS is under new leadership and recovering well from the financial meltdown of 2020. It seems particularly at odds with the ethos of SOAS to be cutting UK scholarship in Burmese at a time when Myanmar is in such an awful position, and also at odds with the founding charter of SOAS “to accept a special commitment to language scholarship relating to Asia, Africa and the Middle East.”

I call upon colleagues, former students and all those who would wish SOAS to reverse this decision to write to the Director or Deputy Director of SOAS in the most persuasive and supportive way you can, making the case for keeping the Professor of Burmese post. Do share this news with others who may wish to voice support, and feel free to email me privately for further information if you would like.

လေးစားလျက်

Justin Watkins
Professor of Burmese
SOAS, University of London

University of Sydney offers a “postgraduate research scholarship”, which we think means pre-PhD but might mean during PhD. see here for more details. Deadline in mid September

After a fairly long “summer” / monsoon hiatus, we have an event to promote! The Foreign Correspondence Club of Thailand will be hosting the following people to discuss the future for the Rohingya community in Myanmar.

Details: 7pm (Thai time), 25 August 2022, livestreamed on the FCCT Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/FCCThailand). more info: https://www.fccthai.com/events/115

Aung Kyaw Moe, advisor on Rohingya issues, National Unity Government of Myanmar, Ministry of Human Right

Shahidul Haque, Former Bangladesh foreign secretary and Bangabandhu Chair at Delhi University, India

Laetitia van den Assum, former Netherlands ambassador and member of Kofi Annan’s Advisory Commission on Rakhine State (2016-17)

Chutima Sidasathian, a journalist specializing in human trafficking issues

Kingsley Abbott, director of global accountability and international justice, International Commission of Jurists and former senior legal advisor at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.

Moderator – Gwen Robinson, past president of the FCCT 

see here for our full calendar of events.

This week’s New Pubs features Green’s new book on Burmese silver since the colonial era; Cohen et al with a comparative look at medicine across India, Myanmar, and Thailand; and Bergès on the way cultural heritage abets peacebuliding in Rakhine state.

As always, see our Recent Publications page for all of the citations and for past weeks.

Sarkisyanz traces the long history of “the royal ideal of a welfare state” (56) in Burma, from Ashokan influences, through Kyanzittha’s proclamations that “‘all the people … shall eat plenty of food, … shall enjoy happiness'” (50), to Mindon, who “refused to arm his forces with modern weapons in order not to be responsible for the destruction of life” (97). This lineage culminates, in Sark’s narrative, with the syncretic Marxist Thakins, but even more so in Nu, who eliminated the death penalty (221) and was seen by monks interviewed in 1959 as the “closest approximation to the ideal of the perfect Buddhist ruler in the Ashokan tradition” (226). Ultimately, Sarkisyanz attempts to adduce in this tradition an “aspiration to base the state on an ethical maximum” (236), although he does at least admit that the Ashokan ideal must contend with other models of kingship: “Against the background of ruthless power practices of numerous historic monarchs, the Bodhisattva ideal of kingship proved only a partial ideational foundation for the royal charisma” (80). Indeed, as a BSPP ideologue gloated after the 1962 coup, “U Nu’s government did not know ‘what it means to care for the people, far less capable of carrying out what little it knew …’  It was elected by a majority of the people. But: ‘Sometimes what a man desires to have is not what he actually needs … It happens that what a man desires is actually dangerous for him and for society. So also with nations …’” (234). The BSPP and the SPDC after it would endorse a form of “tough love” that would re-center the ruthless power imperatives of rule. Nu, it would appear, was just too soft (နု)…

Sarkisyanz, Emanuel. Buddhist Backgrounds of the Burmese Revolution, Springer, 1965.

See here for the PDF, and for all the other cuts.

Applications are now open for the 2023 ANU Humanities Research Centre Visiting Fellowship program. About the fellowship program:

• Provides travel and accommodation for up to 3 months at the Australian National University (for numerous scholars each year)
• Applications welcome from eligible scholars working in every discipline and from every part of the world who wish to contribute to 2023 annual theme of “Repair” (described below)
• Applications close 30 September 2022
• Guidelines, application form and eligibility: https://hrc.cass.anu.edu.au/news/hrc-2023-visiting-fellows-scheme-now-open
• Queries to admin.HAL@anu.edu.au

a few days ago Macquarie University professor and NLD advisor Sean Turnell testified in court, pleading not-guilty to accusations of espionage, essentially. Read more here.

This is a grim reminder that he remains inprisoned. Read more about his situation on the website put together by his colleagues.

https://freeseanturnell.net/

This week’s New Pubs features two chapters from the recently published Routledge Handbook of Highland Asia. One is by Fiskesjö on the Wa; the other by Sadan and Ja Htoi Pan Maran on gender in Kachinland. The last publication for this week is Sunam on Rohingya refugee life projects in Malaysia.

As always, see our Recent Publications page for all of the citations and for past weeks.

The Burma Studies Group and the John Okell Paper Prize Committee are pleased to announce that Lian Bawi Thang and Courtney Wittekind have been selected as co-honorees for this year’s inaugural paper price. Congratulations both.

• Courtney Wittekind. “‘Take our Land:’ Fronts, Fake Farmers, and Falsity in a City Yet-to-Come.”
• Lian Bawi Thang. “The Sit-Tat’s Quest for a Grand Strategy: A Critical Examination of the 2017 Rohingya Clearance Operation.”

Here are the remarks from the Prize selection committee about the papers:

“The committee was impressed by the two papers especially because they provide new ways of approaching questions that might seem to have been settled. By starting from a deep engagement with the empirical material and crafting an analysis from there, both authors generate nuanced analyses that steer clear of received and often polarized ideas about society, culture and politics in contemporary Myanmar. We welcome the creativity and openness to surprise their scholarship demonstrates.”

See here for other paper prizes.

Hedström, Jenny and Elisabeth Olivius. Waves of Upheaval in Myanmar: Gendered Transformations and Political Transitions. NIAS / Hawai’i U Press, 2022.

This is the first comprehensive account of the multifaceted processes of gendered transformation that took place in Myanmar between 2011 and 2021, and which continues to shape events today. The period began with the end of direct military rule and the transition to a hybrid, semi-democratic regime, precipitating far-reaching political, economic and social changes across Myanmar. To date, the gendered dynamics and effects of this transition have not yet received sustained scholarly attention. Remedying this gap, this book provides a much-needed historical corrective through a careful, nuanced analysis of the gendered dynamics of transitional politics, institutions and policymaking; feminist resistance, mobilization, and movement building; and their effects on labor, land, and everyday lives. Although the February 2021 military coup brought an end to this decade of experimentation and transition, in the richness of its analysis and detail, the book offers a deeper understanding of the current political situation in Myanmar. The gendered changes that the transition brought about have shaped both the current configuration of masculinized, military dictatorship, as well as the unprecedented role played by women in resistance to military rule after the 2021 coup. This analysis of the gendered dynamics and effects of the recent decade of political transition in Myanmar is therefore critical for understanding current events, as well as the ways in which Myanmar’s political landscape might continue to be reshaped.

See all of our future pubs here.