Maitrii Aung-Thwin is Associate Professor of Myanmar/Southeast Asian History and Coordinator of the Comparative Asian Studies PhD Program. He has written on social movements, law, colonialism, nation-building, and intellectual history.

RESEARCH INTERESTS:

Dr. Aung-Thwin’s research has been concerned with the histories of domination, resistance, and identity in Southeast Asia during the late colonial age. He has pursued these interests through studies on intellectual communities, historiography, and the production of knowledge. His first monograph, The Return of the Galon King: History, Law, and Rebellion in Colonial Burma examined colonialism’s role in the historical construction of resistance in British Burma.

His approach to studying the region has been influenced by scholarship on transnationalism, colonialism, ethno-history, socio-legal studies, oral history, and public history. These conversations have deepened his interest in the development of legal, business, and religious networks in South and Southeast Asia.

Most of his research is situated in the specific context of colonial and postcolonial Myanmar. He is co-author of the recent A History of Myanmar Since Ancient Times (2012).

CURRENT PROJECTS:

Dr. Aung-Thwin’s recent work critically examines the role of colonial and domestic scholar-officials in our understanding of Southeast Asian culture. He is currently completing a project entitled, Towards a National Past in Myanmar: Public History, Memory, Biography.

Two ongoing projects include an intellectual history that examines the construction of a peasant hero in socialist Burma (1962-1988) and a study that explores interaction amongst state, religious, and business interests in the development of transnational Buddhist networks in India, Myanmar, and Indonesia.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS:

Books:

• A History of Myanmar Since Ancient Times: Traditions and Transformations, with Michael A. Aung-Thwin, Reaktion Books, 2013 (Updated and Expanded Edition).
• The Return of the Galon King: History, Law, and Rebellion in Colonial Burma, (Ohio University Press, 2011).
• A New History of Southeast Asia, with M.C. Ricklefs, Bruce Lockhart, Albert Lau, and Portia Reyes, (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2010).

Journal Articles/Chapters in Book:

• 2019. "The Making of Myanmar’s 1947 Constitution: Geography, Ethnicity, and the Law", in Kevin Tan and Bui Ngoc Son (eds.) Constitutional Foundings in Southeast Asia, Hart Publishing.
• 2018. "Connections, Contact, and Community in the Southeast Asian Past: Teaching Transnational History Through Amitav Ghosh's The Glass Palace, in Jane Wong Yeang Chui (ed.) Asia and the Historical Imagination (Palgrave-Macmillan).
• 2018. “Rethinking the Field: Locality and Connectivity in Southeast Asian Studies”, Suvannabhumi: Multi-disciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 10, No. 2.
• 2017. “The State”, in Adam Simpson, Nicholas Farrelly, and Ian Holliday (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Myanmar, London: Routledge
• 2017. "Southeast Asian Studies and its Vicissitudes: Envisioning the Field", Regional Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2017

[For a fuller listing please see FASS profile site http://profile.nus.edu.sg/fass/hismvat/stf_hismvat.htm]

TEACHING AND ADVISING:

Dr. Aung-Thwin has developed and taught a range of undergraduate and graduate modules in Asian and World History. He is interested in supervising graduate students who wish to pursue research on colonialism, peasant studies, resistance, law, Southeast Asian historiography, and on most topics pertaining to Myanmar.

Sem I:

• CAS6770 Graduate Research Seminar

Sem II:

• HY2250 Introduction to Southeast Asian History

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE:

• Board of Directors, Association for Asian Studies
• Deputy-Director, Asia Research Institute
• Editor, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies
• Chair, Southeast Asia Council, Association for Asian Studies
• Trustee, Burma Studies Foundation, Center for Burma Studies, Northern Illinois University
• Board Member, SEASREP Foundation