Ever since the 1970s, when there was a growth spurt in Burma studies, only a few individuals have entered the field, stretched over two decades in an irregular pattern. Suddenly, it seems, there is once more a "critical mass" of graduate students working on Burma. Although small in number compared to other areas in Asian studies, and although not everyone that belongs to the new generation is on this panel, in our opinion, some of the most important ones whose dissertations will have a lasting impact on Burma studies, and whose foci of research are excitingly varied and stimulating, are. And it is this excitement generated by their research topics and their methodologies, as well as the diversity of their topics, personalities, and backgrounds that we wish to share with the field.

As remnants of the previous generation of Burma specialists who have only recently become senior scholars, Victor Lieberman and I felt that it was the right time, in terms of ushering in the millennium with a new generation of scholars, and also in terms of the crucial stage at which the panelists are in currently as a group, to introduce their work to the field of Asian Studies in general, and the sub-field of Burma studies in particular. All the active panelists belong to this new generation, while the two senior scholars, as co-chairs, will introduce the panelists, manage the process in a most collegial manner, and moderate the discussions with the audience that will follow each presentation. The audience itself will be the "discussant."

Each of the panelists represents either a different focus, region of Burma, period of study, or discipline. Two are in the department of history at the University of Michigan working on two different periods in Burma’s history that have important gaps, and each has taken an entirely different approach to the country’s historiography. The third panelist is in the department of archaeology at the University of Hawaii working on a most critical period in Southeast Asia: the millennium that preceded the rise of the great "classical" states of the region, and the first to be trained in the U.S. in the archaeology of Burma since the mid-1960s. The fourth panelist, in geography at the University of Sydney, is another "first"; he is the only one in Burma studies who has ever conducted research on the geography of Burma using the latest remote sensing techniques and methodologies, particularly seeking out settlement patterns via satellite. The fifth student is from Burma working on his dissertation at Cornell University in the department of government (political science to the rest of us), and examines state-business relations in today’s Burma. Five different nations are represented by the panelists as well: The Peoples’ Republic of China, the United States, Singapore, Australia, and Burma.

Two, we hope three, of the five panelists will have "tested" these papers at the Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs in the Fall of 1999, the kind of developmental sequence that the Program Committee has stated it hopes graduate student applicants follow prior to submitting papers to the national meeting.

Laichen Sun, University of Michigan

Over the past half a century, early modern Sino-Southeast Asian maritime intercourse has received tremendous attention while its overland counterpart is still extremely poorly studied and understood. This study intends to redress this grave imbalance. It argues that the socio-economic and military expansion of Ming China (1368–1644) in Yunnan and Northern Mainland Southeast Asia (hence as NMSEA, defined as a region including southern Yunnan and northern parts of modern mainland Southeast Asia, and populated primarily by the Tai and Vietnamese peoples) contributed to the rise of NMSEA during the period of c. 1380–1600. First, dramatic socio-economic, including demographic, changes in Ming China in general and in Yunnan in particular intensified to an unprecedented degree the overland trade between China and NMSEA. The exchange of large quantities of gems, spices, cotton cloth, silver, copper, and silk between NMSEA and China characterized this overland commerce. The enormous profits thus accrued greatly enriched the coffers of NMSEA. Second, the trade in firearms and gunpowder and early Ming military expansion in NMSEA transferred new military technologies of firearms and cannons to the Tai and Vietnamese polities long before the arrival of the Portuguese in the early 16th century. Especially, Ming invasion and occupation of Dai Viet (Annam) from 1406 to 1427 resulted in the transformation and modernization of the Vietnamese state and military. Third, the increasing settlement of Han Chinese immigrants in NMSEA had important economic and political impacts as well. All these factors, inter alia (for example, the internal dynamics), contributed to the rise of NMSEA in the 15th to the early 16th centuries epitomized in the following historical occurrences: the decisive defeat of Champa by Dai Viet in 1471 and Dai Viet’s westward expansion up to the Irrawaddy River afterwards, Chiang Mai’s astonishing economic prosperity and military strength, the rise of Mong Mit and Mohnyin (both in northern Burma or Myanmar) in the 1480s, and the sack of Ava by the Shans in 1526, and so on. In addition, NMSEA in this period witnessed a cultural efflorescence, including the introduction or reintroduction of Buddhism and written languages, the flowering of literature and architecture, etc. This study supports and complements Reid’s research on the "age of commerce" in Southeast Asia, but departs from his assertion that "it was the sea trade which created the age of commerce; the caravan trade flourished as a consequence." The Sino-Southeast Asian overland trade, though undeniably interacted with the maritime trade, had its own dynamism.

Maitrii Aung-Thwin, University of Michigan

The history of the Saya San Rebellion (1930–32), Burma’s most noted uprising of the colonial period, has remained factually intact for the last sixty-seven years. Scholarship has since accepted the narrative to be historically accurate and has instead concentrated on interpreting the rebellion and the role of Saya San (its leader) within various economic, socio-religious, political, and nationalist settings. Collectively, these interpretations portray the uprising as a Burmese reaction to social transformations under British rule. Functioning within a problematic modern vs. traditional paradigm, scholars have characterized the nature of the uprising as either an effort to restore pre-British institutions through familiar means of revolt (Sarkisyanz, Adas, Scott) or as an attempt to mobilize popular sentiment by employing Western modes of political protest and organization (Herbert). The preoccupation with interpreting the Saya San Rebellion within this dichotomous structure has seemingly led scholars to assume the accurateness of the narrative. However, a systematic study of the original sources, including the India Office Library’s Burma Rebellion Files, has uncovered several glaring inconsistencies in the evidence upon which the Rebellion narrative and Saya San’s place in Burmese history are based. This paper will introduce these errors and their implications while exploring how British scholars-administrators through the intersecting of colonial legislation, British legal method, and the historical/anthropological assumptions of colonial scholarship constructed the myth of Saya San.

Shah Alam Zailini, University of Hawaii

Archaeologists and historians alike consider the Pyu settlements of Burma one of the earliest urban centres to have emerged in mainland Southeast Asia. As archaeological research has concentrated mainly on the history and art of the Pyu, little is known of the sociopolitical organisation of the various Pyu settlements in the dry zone. This study is an intra-site analysis of ceramics and religious artifacts from the settlement of Sriksetra. It employs existing data from the site to construct a map detailing the distribution of various classes of artifacts, spatially and temporally, and in relation to existing architectural features in the site. This data is then used to infer the spatial distribution of the various social classes in the urban centre during various periods in the life of the settlement.

Interpretation of the data will be made based on the following assumption. As an urban centre, the social hierarchy at Sriksetra would have centered on non-agricultural specialists. These would have included elite and affluent groups, religious and ceremonial specialists, craft specialists, and a section of the population involved in agricultural activities. The distribution of these classes will be inferred from the distribution of various classes of artifacts across the landscape. Temporal data will aid in determining the growth of the settlement over time.

This study is part of preliminary research for future work tracing the process of urbanisation in Sriksetra.

Bob Hudson, University of Sydney

A Geographical Information Systems study of the medieval urban site of Bagan, using survey material, maps and aerial photographs, plus original field research, suggests a series of oscillations in its growth. GIS is a computer-based method of creating analytical tools—mainly maps or graphs—from a relational database. Spatial analysis of Bagan from the 10th to 13th centuries a.d. bears out the historian’s model, that periodicity can be identified in the medieval era. Predictive modeling is now being used to try to locate and define early habitation sites around Bagan, and to attempt to distinguish medieval sites from earlier sites that may have been among the 19 founding villages claimed in the Glass Palace Chronicle.

A specific case study will be presented, of Yon Hlut Kyun, or "Free Rabbit" Island, the putative home base of Bagan’s earliest dynasties, where the author and Nyein Lwin (Archaeology Department, Bagan) recently excavated a substantial brick structure and ritual items. A plan for the dating and analysis of ritual sprinkler pots and other earthenware items, from this and similar sites, will be described. It is suggested that there is a viable prospect of testing the mythological/historical view of Bagan with archaeological evidence, and further, that the archaeological evidence points to the existence of several intra-regional centres of influence preceding the "historical" city centre known as Old Bagan.

Kyaw Yin Hlaing, Cornell University