The Burma Research Society (BRS) was founded on March 29, 1910

By Hybernator – Own workEdited with Microsoft Paint based on my photograph of the cover of Pe Maung Tin The Glass Palace Chronicle of the Kings of Burma (1,960th ed.), Rangoon University Press, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19934942

The Burma Research Society (BRS) was a prominent academic organization founded on March 29, 1910, to investigate and encourage cultural, historical, and scientific studies relating to Burma (Myanmar).

Founding & Purpose: Established by British and Burmese scholars (including J. S. Furnivall and Maung Tin) at Rangoon University to promote knowledge of Burma’s history, language, art, and social conditions.
The Journal: It published the biannual Journal of the Burma Research Society (JBRS) from 1911 to 1980, spanning 59 volumes and over 1,300 peer-reviewed articles in English and Burmese.
Closure: The society and its journal were shut down by the government in 1980.
Legacy: Its archives serve as a foundational pillar for modern Burma studies and inspired later academic projects, such as the Independent Journal of Burmese Scholarship (IJBS) launched in 2016, as well as contemporary groups like the Myanmar Research Network at the University of Melbourne.

From Wikipedia: The Burma Research Society (Burmese: မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ သုတေသန အသင်း) was an academic society devoted to historical research of Burma (Myanmar). Its aims were “the investigation and encouragement of Art, Science and Literature in relation to Burma and the neighbouring countries”.^[1]

The society was founded on 29 March 1910 at a meeting held at the Bernard Free Library in Yangon by J S Furnivall, J A Stewart, Gordon H Luce, Pe Maung Tin and Charles Duroiselle. It published original research which appeared in the Journal of the Burma Research Society. The Journal of the Burma Research Society (1911–1977) consists of 59 volumes, being 136 journals comprising more than 1,300 articles. Since 1962, publication has been subject to government regulation. The society also published its Fiftieth Anniversary Publications (Rangoon: Burma Research Society, 1960–61. 2 vols). The first volume consisted of papers read at the society’s fiftieth anniversary conference, and the second, 524 pages, reprinted a selection of articles from earlier issues of the journal.

As well as publishing the journal, the Burma Research Society also published Burmese historical and literary manuscript texts and prescribed school textbooks.

References

“Journal of the Burma Research Society”. IG Publishing. Archived from the original on 12 September 2017. Retrieved 17 June 2012.

External links

Revered Burma Research Society Founded 109 Years Ago in The Irrawaddy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Journal of the Burma Research Society (Burmese: မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသုတေသနအသင်းဂျာနယ်, JBRS) was an academic journal covering Burma studies that was published by the Burma Research Society between 1911 and 1980. When it began publication in 1911, the journal became the first peer-reviewed academic journal focused on Burma studies.^[1] Over the 69-year period, the journal published 59 volumes and 132 issues, including over 1,300 articles.^[2] It was published twice a year at the Rangoon University Estate^[3] in both English and Burmese.^[4]

Until its closure in 1980, the journal was the country’s principal scholarly publication.^[5] By the mid-1910s, it was also the leading platform in the field of scholarly reviews of Burmese fiction.^[6] The journal analyzed a wide range of Burmese culture and Burmese history topics and published ethnographic studies, translations and reviews of Burmese literature, folklore, music and theology, fauna, geography and archaeology reports, historical essays, and annotated texts and essays of historical significance, translated from Burmese, Pali, Mon, and other languages.^[7]

The journal came under government regulation after 1962. In 1980, it was closed, alongside its publishing body, the Burma Research Society, by the Burma Socialist Programme Party government.^[4]

The journal remains a major source in Burma studies publications to date.^{[note 1]}

Legacy

In 2011, Burmese and Western scholars convened at Yale University with the goal of re-establishing the JBRS for scholars.^[8] Its successor, named the Independent Journal of Burmese Scholarship (IJBS), published its first issue in August 2016.^[8]^[9]

Notes

For example, see (Harvey 1925: 381) and (Htin Aung 1967: 345–350) for an index of citations throughout the books. See more recent works (Liberman 2003) and Aung-Thwin (2005) where several JBRS articles are cited throughout the books.

References

Selth, Andrew (29 October 2008). “Modern Burma Studies: A Survey of the Field” (PDF). Modern Asian Studies. 44 (2). Cambridge University Press: 406. doi:10.1017/s0026749x08003508. hdl:10072/32245. S2CID 145479175. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
“Journal of the Burma Research Society (JBRS)”. IG Publishing. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
Annual Bibliography of Indian Archaeology: For the Years 1970–1972. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company. 1984. pp. xvii. ISBN 9789400962712.
Taylor, Robert H. (2004). Ooi, Keat Gin (ed.). Southeast Asia: A Historical Encyclopedia, from Angkor Wat to East Timor. Vol. 1. ABC-CLIO. p. 295.
Seekins, Donald M. (2006). Historical Dictionary of Burma (Myanmar). Historical Dictionaries of Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East. Scarecrow Press. p. 126. ISBN 9780810864863.
Win Pe, U; Maung Swan Yi (2009). Doris Jedamski (ed.). The Development of Modern Burmese Theatre and Literature Under Western Influence. Chewing Over the West: Occidental Narratives in Non-Western Readings. Rodopi. p. 101. ISBN 9789042027831.
Lloyd W. Griffin (ed.). “Foreign Acquisitions Newsletter” (47). The Association of Research Libraries: 86. ISSN 0014-8512. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
“About အကြောင်း”. Independent Journal of Burmese Scholarship. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
“Professor’s mission to launch scholarly journal in Burma now a reality”. YaleNews. 8 November 2016. Retrieved 25 March 2023.

Bibliography

Aung-Thwin, Michael (2005). The mists of Rāmañña: The Legend that was Lower Burma (illustrated ed.). Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. ISBN 9780824828868.
Lieberman, Victor B. (2003). Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830, volume 1, Integration on the Mainland. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-80496-7.
Harvey, G. E. (1925). History of Burma: From the Earliest Times to 10 March 1824. London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.
Htin Aung, Maung (1967). A History of Burma. New York and London: Cambridge University Press.