Tag: Myanmar

The Journal of Burma Studies: Q&A with Jane Ferguson on Gender and Social Change in Myanmar Special Issue

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Photo of Jane Ferguson
Photograph provided by Jane Ferguson

A new special issue from The Journal of Burma Studies is now available to readers on Project MUSE. “Gender and Social Change in Myanmar” analyzes the role of gender within social activism, everyday practices, identity politics, and religious histories in Myanmar are explored in this volume.

The Journal of Burma Studies was established in 1996, with current editor Jane M. Ferguson coming on board in December 2017.  She is an Associate Professor of Anthropology, Southeast Asian History, and School of Culture, History, and Language at the Australian National University with a PhD in Anthropology and Southeast Asian history from Cornell University.

Ferguson’s publications include Repossessing Shanland: Myanmar, Thailand, and a Nation-State Deferred (University of Wisconsin Press, 2021) and Silver Screens, and Golden Dreams: A Social History of Burmese Cinema (University of Hawai‘i Press, forthcoming).

Below she shares with UH Press what its been like these last five years as the editor for The Journal of Burma Studies:

University of Hawai‘i Press: After half a decade sitting at the editorial desk, what issues or historic events have changed in your field? Additionally, why was this issue important now?

Jane Ferguson: The horrific events and repression following General Min Aung Hlaing’s 2021 military coup in Myanmar — for a country struggling with economic collapse from the COVID pandemic — constitute a large-scale humanitarian crisis, with war enveloping the country even more than in previous decades. JBS’ charter is to support research and education about and within the country; it is a minuscule contribution where civil war and repression are horrendous, but it does represent one forum for discussing issues that matter to Myanmar, from politics to history, art to popular culture and more. It is also worth engaging with Myanmar’s diverse, rich cultures, ecologies, languages, and human creativity. There is a massive humanitarian crisis in Myanmar, but focusing only on suffering risks ignoring the cultural diversity and tremendous vibrance of its people, historically and today.

UHP: JBS recently introduced a new Special Issue, “Gender and Social Change.” How did this come about? 

JF: “Gender and Social Change” is a capacious theme, and remains crucial for any context and study. It is accessible in the sense that despite the articles’ individual topics and particular research in Myanmar, the lessons are relatable to others. This issue deals with topics including gendered activism and transformation, religiosity, global popular culture, sexism, homophobia, and cyber-bullying; subjects of universal concern and relevance.  

The Special Issue on “Gender and Social Change in Myanmar” is part of our plan to reach out to and engage new and emerging scholars. JBS has general issues which gather individually-submitted articles, but the strategy for this Special Issue was to take a general, but pressing theme, and seek out different responses to it. We advertised the Special Issue via a call for abstracts, worked with authors through peer-review and the revision process, and wrote an introduction engaging the papers thematically and historically. 

UHP: What is next for JBS? 

JF: The Journal of Burma Studies will carry on its research and educational charter, working with new and returning authors to encourage lively debate and discussion about issues relevant to Myanmar, Southeast Asian Studies, or disciplinary themes writ large. Please stay tuned for the next call for papers for a thematic issue, or if you have a research topic you are working on please get in touch!

UHP: Do you have any advice for academics interested in submitting to The Journal of Burma Studies?

JF: Anyone interested in contributing to the Journal simply needs to send us an email and let us know! We have standard research articles, but also sections about research notes and book reviews. To support and encourage new authors, we have short written guides to help them navigate the waves of academic publishing.   

The Journal of Burma Studies
Volume 27, Number 1 (2023)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editor’s Note: Special Issue: Gender and Social Change in Myanmar
Jane M. Ferguson

Deconstructing and Reinforcing Gender Norms and Cultural Taboos in Myanmar’s Spring
Revolution
Aye Lei Tun

Our Htamein, Our Flag, Our Victory: The Role of Young Women in Myanmar’s Spring Revolution
Marlar, Justine Chambers, and Elena

Reconsidering Renunciation: Shifting Subjectivities and Models of Practice in the Biography of a
Buddhist Woman
MK Long

The Gendered Rebel: Challenging Gendered Norms through Punk in Urban Yangon
Carolin Hirsch

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Established in 1996, The Journal of Burma Studies is the premier peer-reviewed academic print journal that focuses exclusively on Burma. The Journal of Burma Studies is jointly sponsored by the Burma Studies Group and the Center for Burma Studies at Northern Illinois University.

It is published twice a year for the Center for Burma Studies. The Journal seeks to publish the best scholarly research focused on Burma/Myanmar, its ethnic nationalities, stateless and diasporic cultures from a variety of disciplines, ranging from art history and religious studies, to economics and law.

Submit your manuscript online.

UH Press to publish The Journal of Burma Studies in partnership with the Northern Illinois University, Center for Burma Studies

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The University of Hawai‘i Press will publish and distribute The Journal of Burma Studies, one of the only scholarly peer-reviewed journals that focus exclusively on Burma/Myanmar. This new partnership with the Center for Burma Studies at Northern Illinois University begins with volume 23, 2019. The complete content of the journal is available online in Project MUSE.

UH Press Interim Director and Publisher, Joel Cosseboom, said: “We are pleased to partner with the NIU Center for Burma Studies on this important and unique journal.”

Edited by Catherine Raymond from Northern Illinois University, Center for Burma Studies and Jane M. Ferguson from Australian National University, The Journal of Burma Studies seeks to publish the best scholarly research focused on Burma/Myanmar and its minority and diasporic cultures from a variety of disciplines, ranging from art history and religious studies, to economics and law.

Dr. Ferguson looks forward to collaborating with UH Press to launch innovative and engaging issues of The Journal of Burma Studies. “University of Hawai‘i Press has consistently produced some of the most exciting publications on Southeast Asia as well as Burma/Myanmar Studies, so I am delighted that JBS will now work with them,” she said.

The journal is jointly sponsored by the Burma Studies Group and the Center for Burma Studies at Northern Illinois University. Published since 1997, the journal draws together research and critical reflection on Burma/Myanmar from scholars across Asia, North America and Europe.

Content is available on the Project MUSE platform.

Subscribe at: https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/jbs/

Submit your manuscript at: https://jbs.scholasticahq.com/for-authors

The Journal of Burma Studies joins UH Press’s extensive list of Asian and Southeast Asian studies journals including: Asian Perspectives, Korean Studies, Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, Review of Japanese Culture and Society, and others.

About UH Press

 The University of Hawai‘i Press supports the mission of the university through the publication of books and journals of exceptional merit. It strives to advance knowledge through the dissemination of scholarship—new information, interpretations, methods of analysis—with a primary focus on Asian, Hawaiian, Pacific, Asian American and global studies. It also serves the public interest by providing high-quality books and resource materials of educational value on topics related to Hawai‘i’s people, culture, and natural environment. Through its publications the Press seeks to stimulate public debate and educate both within and outside the classroom.

About Northern Illinois University, Center for Burma Studies

 Founded in 1987, the Center collects and preserves information and artifacts of all kinds concerning the study of the peoples and cultures of Burma/Myanmar, and makes these materials broadly available for research and study.

The Center enjoys a unique relationship with the Burma Studies Foundation, which assures that all Burma/Myanmar-related items donated to the foundation will be offered to the center for inclusion and conservation within the university’s collections. Oversight by the foundation combines strong support of the center with lasting responsibility to the field of Burma/Myanmar studies.

The Center for Burma Studies is a non-political, non-degree granting, administrative and academic unit within Northern Illinois University. The Center has the following goals:

  • The maintenance and expansion of a comprehensive research library to sustain the field of Burma studies
  • The collection, care, and exhibition of the arts of Burma
  • The support and promotion of undergraduate and graduate teaching concerning Burma
  • The organization and hosting of self-supporting national and international conferences on Burma studies
  • The publication of relevant scholarship on Burma
  • The care and enhancement of archival resources such as photographs, music records, oral histories, personal papers, and field notes
  • The promotion of outreach activities to schools and communities
  • Encouraging the performance of Burmese arts
  • The securing of educational opportunities through scholarships, internships, and fellowships
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Portraits of Southeast Asian Modernity

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Figures of Southeast Asia ModernityFigures of Southeast Asian Modernity, edited by Joshua Baker, Erik Harms, and Johan Lindquist, brings together the fieldwork of over eighty scholars and covers the nine major countries of the region: Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. An introduction outlines important social transformations in Southeast Asia and key theoretical and methodological innovations that result from ethnographic attention to the study of key figures. Each section begins with an introduction by a country editor followed by short essays offering vivid and intimate portraits set against the background of contemporary Southeast Asia. The result is a volume that combines scholarly rigor with a meaningful, up-to-date portrayal of a region of the world undergoing rapid change. A reference bibliography offers suggestions for further reading.

“The idea of capturing recent transformations of Southeast Asia through vignettes about familiar yet idiosyncratic individuals is brilliant. The everyday experiences and aspirations of people trying to make sense of their lives and dreams convey a complex and often surprising view of contemporary cross-currents, upheavals, anxieties, and struggles in a volatile region. This volume offers a great way for students to understand and empathize with ordinary people and nations in rapid motion.” —Aihwa Ong, co-editor of Worlding Cities: Asian Experiments in the Art of Being Global

January 2013 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3741-9 / $25.00 (PAPER)

October 2012 Author Events

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Thursday, October 11, 12 noon to 1:15 p.m.
Author and filmmaker Tom Coffman will speak on his latest book, I Respectfully Dissent: A Biography of Edward H. Nakamura, as part of the Brown Bag Biography series at the Center for Biographical Research, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Henke Hall 325, 1800 East-West Road. For more information call: 808-956-3774 or email: biograph@hawaii.edu.

Thursday, October 11, 5:00 p.m.
UH Hilo associate professor Mark Panek will be on O‘ahu to kickoff Windward Communitiy College’s Common Book program, which has selected his award-winning Big Happiness: The Life and Death of a Modern Hawaiian Warrior for the 2012-2013 academic year. His talk will be held at the newly opened Library Learning Commons, the first green library in the UH system. The goal of the Common Book Program is that everyone at the college—students, faculty, and staff, as well as people in the community—read and discuss the same book over an entire semester.

Friday, October 12, 2:30 p.m.
The Department of American Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa presents “THE LEAVES KEEP FALLING,” a film screening and panel discussion at the Center for Korean Studies Auditorium. Liam Kelley, associate professor and undergraduate coordinator for UHM Department of History, will be one of the discussants. His book, Beyond the Bronze Pillars: Envoy Poetry and the Sino-Vietnamese Relationship, examined the politico-cultural relationship between Vietnam and China in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. The event is co-sponsored with the Center for Southeast Asian Studies and the Center for Pacific Islands Studies.

Sunday, October 21, 5:00-7:00 p.m.
Barbara Amos will launch her new book, Bones of Contention: Animals and Religion in Contemporary Japan, on Sunday, October 21, 5-7 pm, at Linda Stein’s Gallery, New York City. For more information, see the previous post.

Saturday, October 27, 9:30-11:00 a.m.
As part of the “Saturday University—Myanmar and Its Many Peoples” lecture series, Arizona State University professor Juliane Schober will speak on “Buddhist Activism in Myanmar,” at the Seattle Asian Art Museum’s Stimson Auditorium. Tickets are $5 for SAM members, $10 for nonmembers. Professor Schober’s book, Modern Buddhist Conjunctures in Myanmar: Cultural Narratives, Colonial Legacies, and Civil Society, will be available for purchase from Elliott Bay Book Company.

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