This week in BSG Pubs we are giving love (b/c Valentines Day) to borderlands: we have Ken MacLean’s new book on how human rights “facts” are produced in Karen state; McConnachie, Ho, and Kyed have published an introduction to a special issue they have edited on Burma borders; and Bülbül, Islam, and Khan have a volume on the Rohingya. See here for full citations: https://burmastudiesgroup.wordpress.com/recent-publications-2/.

This week in Deep Cuts, coinciding with Tharaphi Than’s upcoming talk on images in the uprising, are a few texts that consider visuality and visual practices in Myanmar. We have Mandy Sadan’s 2014 article on the history of photography in Burma, Jane Ferguson’s (2012) writings on the portrayal of Shan/Tai people in Burmese cinema, and Thurein Naing’s recent paper (2021) on the sit-tat’s annual propaganda films. They are not meant to be exhaustive, certainly, and please add yours to the comments. See here for the PDFs and citations

11 Feb 2022, Helen Maria Kyed with DIIS and DIGNITY. More details, see here.

see here for our calendar of events.

BSG Pubs: this week is an all reports edition: Mohinga Matters has its first issue of 2022 (and 12^th post-coup issue in total); Myanmar Project Collective and Researchers’ Republic co-authored report entitled “The internet is a battlefield,” and USIP provides an “anatomy of the military coup.” See here for full citations: https://burmastudiesgroup.wordpress.com/recent-publications-2/.

This week in ‘deep cuts’ we feature work from the late Michael Aung-Thwin, whose article about omens and prophecies feels particularly relevant to these revolutionary times (for instance, recent flocks of hornbills alighting in Yangon had social media speculating; the popular Pale PDF leader is calling himself Bo Naga, the leader of the Royal Dragon Army, because the Tabaung foretold that the Dragon army will win; etc.). 

See our page for the growing archive of under-appreciated or hard to find Burma Studies texts.

8 Feb 2022, 2pm [EST]

[update: use this link to register]

Call for applications at Chiang Mai University: MA in Social Science (Development Studies) – Focus on Land Relation. Scholarships are available.

For further details, please see the program brochure

The deadline is 25th April 2022

Now that the rush of coup anniversary events have passed, you might be tempted to relax. But don’t you dare get off zoom, tho, b/c there are a number of other good ones coming up, including Burmese poetry at Harvard, Exploring Violence and Resistance in Denmark, and the Marxist Leftist Review on “Myanmar’s unfinished revolution” in Sydney. There is also an ongoing film festival that goes until the 14th.

See our calendar page to keep up on it all.

The AAS conference in Hawai’i is quickly approaching. The BSG is pleased to provide travel support to graduate students who are attending, with preference given to scholars from Burma and those who demonstrate financial need. In the past BSG has covered between $250 and $400 for students, so as to reach as many people as possible. Please fill the form here.

* The application will close Feb 4, and awardees will be notified by the 7th.*

BSG Pubs: Appropriately, given the coup anniversary, we have a new volume of revolutionary Burmese poetry, edited by Ko Ko Thett and Brian Haman. We also have Olivius, Hedström, and Zin Mar Phyo interrogating the role of women in the peace process, and Adam Simpson on humanitarianism in the wake of Covid and the coup (open access!); See here for full citations: