New Fellows at Inya

Christian Gilberti is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at the University of California - Berkeley. His project focuses on “Burmese Students Traveling to Colonial India and Debates Surrounding “National Education” in Burma, 1870-1921.” He mentions that “[d]uring the British Raj, Burmese students chose to go abroad due to a lack of educational resources at home. As Burma was then a province of the British Indian Empire, many Burmese students traveled to India. There they made connections beyond their homeland and questioned what it meant to be “Burmese” within the British Empire. I explore how Burmese students’ dissatisfaction with Indian education led them to articulate a new ideal of Western-style “national education” for Burma. In the process, colonized students strategically defined how to be both a nationalist and an imperial subject through debates about colonial educational reform.” Christian will travel to India for field and archival research in Fall 2023.

Peter Alexander is a MA candidate in the Department of History at Northern Illinois University. His project titled “From Monarchy to Bourgeoisie: How Stewardship of the Shwedagon Pagoda Passed to Colonial Rangoon’s Burmese Elite”, places the Shwedagon Pagoda as a symbol of both Buddhist reverence and Burmese nationalism. Alexander considers that “[i]n the early colonial period, prior to 1900, questions of the proper stewardship and management of the site triggered the development of new social relations and forms of moral authority. Trustees of the pagoda were appointed by the colonial government, but soon found that they also answered to the Burmese community and other ethnic groups. This project will investigate how conflicts over corruption and democracy transformed the management of the Shwedagon Pagoda and set the stage for an anti-imperialist, pro-nationalist movement in Burma.” Peter’s field research will be conducted during Summer 2023 in the U.K.