Arthur Swan Ye Tun (Mr)

Proposed Thesis Title: The Public History of the First Anglo-Burmese War’s Underclass
Supervisor: Associate Professor Maitrii Aung-Thwin

I am "Arthur" Swan Ye Tun, a Myanmar national but raised internationally. Since high school, military history has always been my passion but the focus on Myanmar would not take center stage until after my Bachelor's. During my time working for the Myanmar Institute of Strategic and International Studies and later my Masters in Strategic Studies at NTU's RSIS, I found myself back studying the two closely. Indeed, my Masters' thesis ended up becoming about Civil-Military Relations during the decade-long democratic rule of Myanmar and where it was likely going to head. Completing it made me realise that I wanted to combine Myanmar's history and military history together to work on the First Anglo-Burmese War where I decides to apply for the History (PhD) at NUS under the supervision of Professor Maitrii Aung-Thwin.

The topic of my research is to reanalyze the narrative of the First Anglo-Burmese War with an additional focus on its underclass players and how they are remembered in public history. I want to combine the elements of military history's strategy and tactics with the events of Myanmar's rich history.