Papers by Michelle Aung Thin
I wrote my novel The Monsoon Bride (Text, 2011) as part of a Creative Writing Ph.D. at the Univer... more I wrote my novel The Monsoon Bride (Text, 2011) as part of a Creative Writing Ph.D. at the University of Adelaide. Set in 1930, the narrative examines the experience of living in Burma during colonial rule. British colonialism is a frequently explored historical moment in the Englishlanguage literary tradition. While many postcolonial novels are set in India, few are located in Burma even though it was annexed by the British and ultimately governed as an Indian province. Of these texts, fewer still have at their centre a mixedrace consciousness, in particular AngloBurmese or AngloIndian [2]. Instead, the vast majority of novels that represent colonialism do so either from the point of view of the European coloniser or the oppressed colonised subject. This binary is pervasive in contemporary literature as well as postcolonial scholarship. Colonialism may seem well explored within literary and academic writing, but this exploration rarely takes place from a mixedrace consciousness-a v...
M/C Journal
Fig 1: Image from a secret Rangoon fashion shoot. Photograph: Myanmar Photo Archive / Lukas Birk.... more Fig 1: Image from a secret Rangoon fashion shoot. Photograph: Myanmar Photo Archive / Lukas Birk. Introduction NOTE: Rangoon, Burma has been known as Yangon, Myanmar, since 2006. I use Rangoon and Burma for the period prior to 2006 and Yangon and Myanmar for the period thereafter. In addition, I have removed the name of any activist currently in Myanmar due to the recent policy of executing political prisoners. On 1 February 2021, Myanmar was again plunged into political turmoil when the military illegally overthrew the country’s democratically elected government. This is the third time Myanmar, formally known as Burma, has been subject to a coup d’état; violent seizures of power took place in 1962 and in 1988-90. While those two earlier military governments met with opposition spearheaded by students and student organisations, in 2021 the military faced organised resistance through a mass Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) initiated by government healthcare workers who refused to c...
Pt. 1 [Embargoed] Winsome of Rangoon : a novel -- Pt. 2 Representing Anglo-Burmese subjectivity :... more Pt. 1 [Embargoed] Winsome of Rangoon : a novel -- Pt. 2 Representing Anglo-Burmese subjectivity : ExegesisCan writing be situated precisely at the point of the limit between not only binaries but also types of difference? Where does a writer representing mixed-race, Anglo- Burmese subjectivity write from? How does such a writer work from a specific place (colonial Burma) but from a perspective that is no place? How will such writing look and read? This thesis considers how a creative writer, writing about mixed-race subjectivity, might position herself and her material in the context of English-language literary traditions. It comprises a novel and an exegesis in two volumes. Both elements address these questions. “Winsome of Rangoon” is a novel set in Rangoon, 1930, that examines colonialism from a position between coloniser and colonised. Winsome Goode is young, attractive, half-Burmese and half-European. On the night train to Rangoon and just married to a man she barely knows, sh...
TEXT
#STREATstories is a storytelling project focused on the artistic activities and interventions of ... more #STREATstories is a storytelling project focused on the artistic activities and interventions of a social enterprise that successfully supports homeless and disadvantaged young people in Melbourne's inner city. The project explores an 'applied creative writing' approach to creative fieldwork, critical perspectives and imaginative inquiry for researchers keen to employ their writing/research skills and interests to matters of social injustice and inequity. This paper goes 'behind the scenes' to uncover the orientation of four collaborators on this creative research project, all of whom come from very different creative practices, and examine what informs their approach-what and how they do what they do as co-creators and what brings them into this collaborative space. Areas of approach and interest range across ideas of friendship and 'lovence', the 'intimacy of failure', notions of 'giving' voice, and the 'collaboration' between artists and materials. The four contributors to this paper explore how these various interests influence the process of collaboration and co-creation as they negotiate 'that simple but enigmatic step, joining hand, eye and mind' (Carter 2004: xiii).
What does it mean to write the city? And how do you write the city if you live on the streets? Th... more What does it mean to write the city? And how do you write the city if you live on the streets? This chapter explores the implications of writing (and editing) the city through a collaborative creative project that non/fictionLab at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University has developed in Melbourne in conjunction with STREAT, a social enterprise that provides homeless youth and young people who are experiencing severe disadvantage with supported pathways from living on the street to a sustainable livelihood. As an experiment in applied creative writing, #STREATstories aims to foster a meaningful sense of belonging and connection through the making and distribution of place-based urban stories and poetic expression as a way to create prospects for social change. If we take maps to be representative documents, this case study asks: what is the potential for the act of mapping through a process of collaboration, and the maps themselves, to reconfigure representations o...
Do all 'hybrid' or culturally 'crossed' skins mirror the cultural anxieties that ... more Do all 'hybrid' or culturally 'crossed' skins mirror the cultural anxieties that require delineations of difference? Does skin of racially ambiguous appearance signify differently? This paper examines 'Anglo-Burmeseness' and 'not-belonging' in literary representations of colonial Burma. I begin by tracing the development of the phrase, 'Anglo-Burmese'. I then offer a reading of the novels The Lacquer Lady by F. Tennyson Jesse and Not Out of Hate by Ma Ma Lay (translated by Margaret Aung Thwin in 1991), with reference to George Orwell's Burmese Days . These readings focus on representations of the 'skin' and how it is inscribed by ideals of 'authenticity.' In my analysis, I draw from psychologist Didier Anzieu's theory of the 'skin ego' as well as Sarah Ahmed's 'skin of community.' Comparing different forms of 'hybrid' identities, including the 'mixed-race' subject, I argue that ...
Journal of Intercultural Studies, 2020
ABSTRACT Colonial Rangoon was once a famously cosmopolitan city, a significant trade port of the ... more ABSTRACT Colonial Rangoon was once a famously cosmopolitan city, a significant trade port of the British Empire and one of the world’s largest migrant destinations. Mobility, foreignness and cross-cultural hybridity was essential to Rangoon’s make-up during the colonial period. This paper compares three texts, each written from one of Rangoon’s resident mobile cultural identities, that represent ‘sensations of at-homeness’ in the colony. I analyse associations and metaphors of ‘rootedness’ in the personal correspondence of Gordon Luce, the self-published memoir of Kenneth Tun Tin and an interview with a Japanese businesswoman, Ikuyo Okuma. Drawing on Kristeva’s (1991. Strangers to Ourselves. New York: Columbia University Press) examination of the figure of foreigner in Western society in Strangers to Ourselves, as well as Greenblatt’s (2009. Cultural Mobility, A Manifesto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) Manifesto, I argue that ‘sensations of rootedness,’ imagined through associations with blood and soil, may be expressed as maintaining equilibrium. This paper contributes to understandings of ‘plurality’ in colonial Burma and ‘Anglo-Burmese’ experiences and identities.
M/C Journal, 2020
In 2014, telecommunications companies Ooredoo and Telenor introduced a 3G phone network to Myanma... more In 2014, telecommunications companies Ooredoo and Telenor introduced a 3G phone network to Myanmar, one of the last, great un-phoned territories of the world (“Mobile Mania”). Formerly accessible only to military and cultural elites, the smartphone was now available to virtually all. In 2020, just six years later, smartphones are commonplace, used by every class and walk of life. The introduction and mainstreaming of the smartphone in Myanmar coincided with the transition from military dictatorship to quasi democracy; from heavy censorship to relative liberalisation of culture and the media. This ongoing transition continues to be a painful one for many in Myanmar. The 3G network and smartphone ownership enable ordinary people to connect with one another and the Internet—or, more specifically, Facebook, which is ‘the Internet in Myanmar’ (Nyi Nyi Kyaw, “Facebooking in Myanmar” 1). However, the smartphone and what it enables has also been identified as a new instrument of control, wi...
Third Text, 2020
With PhDs in creative writing becoming more valued and valuable in both local and international c... more With PhDs in creative writing becoming more valued and valuable in both local and international contexts, the question of models that are fit for purpose has never been more pressing. This paper discusses a case study of an approach to PhD pedagogy underway with writers from across the Asia-Pacific. It is a model of advanced practice-led research in creative writing, which helps established and mid-career writers to deepen their oeuvres and careers. The model poses the question: What if a PhD in creative writing focused its site of research on a practitioner’s ongoing practice as a writer? How might this deepen the practitioner’s engagement with the processes of and contexts for writing, and enable shifts in and for their future writing practice? This paper invites educators and writers to reconsider how a PhD by practice in creative writing contributes new knowledge – on literary approaches, forms, genres and cultures – to the discipline, at the same time as it provides a writer wi...
Journal of Intercultural Studies, 2020
Colonial Rangoon1 was once a famously cosmopolitan city, a significant trade port of the British ... more Colonial Rangoon1 was once a famously cosmopolitan city, a significant trade port of the British Empire and one of the world's largest migrant destinations. Mobility, foreignness and cross-cultural hybridity was essential to Rangoon's make-up during the colonial period. This paper compares three texts, each written from one of Rangoon's resident mobile cultural identities, that represent 'sensations of at-homeness' in the colony. I analyse associations and metaphors of 'rootedness' in the personal correspondence of Gordon Luce, the selfpublished memoir of Kenneth Tun Tin and an interview with a Japanese businesswoman, Ikuyo Okuma. Drawing on Kristeva's (1991) examination of the figure of foreigner in Western society in Strangers to Ourselves, as well as Greenblatt's (2009) Manifesto, I argue that 'sensations of rootedness,' imagined through associations with blood and soil, may be expressed as maintaining equilibrium. This paper contributes to understandings of 'plurality' in colonial Burma and 'Anglo-Burmese' experiences and identities.
m/c journal, 2020
In 2014, telecommunications companies Ooredoo and Telenor introduced a 3G phone network to Myanma... more In 2014, telecommunications companies Ooredoo and Telenor introduced a 3G phone network to Myanmar, one of the last, great un-phoned territories of the world (The Economist). Formerly accessible only to military and cultural elites, the smartphone was now available to virtually all. In 2020, just six years later, smartphones are commonplace, used by every class and walk of life.
I wrote my novel The Monsoon Bride (Text, 2011) as part of a Creative
Writing PhD at the Universi... more I wrote my novel The Monsoon Bride (Text, 2011) as part of a Creative
Writing PhD at the University of Adelaide. Set in 1930, the narrative examines the
experience of living in Burma during colonial rule. British colonialism is a
frequently explored historical moment in the English-language literary tradition but,
while many postcolonial novels are set in India, few are located in Burma even
though it was annexed by the British and ultimately governed as an Indian province.
Of these texts, fewer still have at their centre a mixed-race consciousness, in particular Anglo-Burmese or Anglo-Indian [2]. Instead, the vast majority of novels that represent colonialism do so either from the point of view of the European coloniser or the oppressed colonised subject. This binary is pervasive in
contemporary literature as well as postcolonial scholarship. Colonialism may seem well explored within literary and academic writing, but this exploration rarely takes place from a mixed-race consciousness—a view that connects both the colonised and
the coloniser.
Do all 'hybrid' or culturally 'crossed' skins mirror the cultural anxieties that require delineat... more Do all 'hybrid' or culturally 'crossed' skins mirror the cultural anxieties that require delineations of difference? Does skin of racially ambiguous appearance signify differently? This paper examines 'Anglo-Burmeseness' and 'not-belonging' in literary representations of colonial Burma.
I begin by tracing the development of the phrase, 'Anglo-Burmese'. I then offer a reading of the novels The Lacquer Lady by F. Tennyson Jesse and Not Out of Hate by Ma Ma Lay (translated by Margaret Aung Thwin in 1991), with reference to George Orwell's Burmese Days. These readings focus on representations of the 'skin' and how it is inscribed by ideals of 'authenticity.' In my analysis, I draw from psychologist Didier Anzieu's theory of the 'skin ego' as well as Sarah Ahmed's 'skin of community.'
Comparing different forms of 'hybrid' identities, including the 'mixed-race' subject, I argue that certain forms of difference defy the intelligibility of colonial systems of taxonomy. These forms can be described as 'not belonging.'
In literary representations of ‘the other’ the borders that define how difference itself is const... more In literary representations of ‘the other’ the borders that define how difference itself is constructed are often hidden or unacknowledged. One senses these limits in the absence of certain kinds of difference in literary texts. For example, British colonialism is frequently portrayed in the English-language literary tradition, yet few novels have at their centre colonial Burma and even fewer an Anglo-Burmese subject. Equally striking is the dearth of postcolonial scholarship in the area. These literary and scholarly omissions seem to replicate colonial practices of inclusion and exclusion based upon judgements about the author's cultural authenticity and choice of subject matter as well as adherence to European social and moral codes. The Lacquer Lady, by F. Tennyson Jesse, is a rare example of a novel set in colonial Burma with a mixed-race, Anglo-Burmese protagonist, yet is overlooked by postcolonial literary critics. In this essay I will offer a reading of The Lacquer Lady drawing on Didier Anzieu's The Skin Ego (1989) and Imogen Tyler's essay Skin Tight (2001). In my reading, I will focus on the representation of Fanny Moroni, the Anglo-Burmese figure, and consider the ways in which intimacy and skin interact with the limit (a literal or metaphoric border that informs subjectivity).
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Papers by Michelle Aung Thin
Writing PhD at the University of Adelaide. Set in 1930, the narrative examines the
experience of living in Burma during colonial rule. British colonialism is a
frequently explored historical moment in the English-language literary tradition but,
while many postcolonial novels are set in India, few are located in Burma even
though it was annexed by the British and ultimately governed as an Indian province.
Of these texts, fewer still have at their centre a mixed-race consciousness, in particular Anglo-Burmese or Anglo-Indian [2]. Instead, the vast majority of novels that represent colonialism do so either from the point of view of the European coloniser or the oppressed colonised subject. This binary is pervasive in
contemporary literature as well as postcolonial scholarship. Colonialism may seem well explored within literary and academic writing, but this exploration rarely takes place from a mixed-race consciousness—a view that connects both the colonised and
the coloniser.
I begin by tracing the development of the phrase, 'Anglo-Burmese'. I then offer a reading of the novels The Lacquer Lady by F. Tennyson Jesse and Not Out of Hate by Ma Ma Lay (translated by Margaret Aung Thwin in 1991), with reference to George Orwell's Burmese Days. These readings focus on representations of the 'skin' and how it is inscribed by ideals of 'authenticity.' In my analysis, I draw from psychologist Didier Anzieu's theory of the 'skin ego' as well as Sarah Ahmed's 'skin of community.'
Comparing different forms of 'hybrid' identities, including the 'mixed-race' subject, I argue that certain forms of difference defy the intelligibility of colonial systems of taxonomy. These forms can be described as 'not belonging.'
Writing PhD at the University of Adelaide. Set in 1930, the narrative examines the
experience of living in Burma during colonial rule. British colonialism is a
frequently explored historical moment in the English-language literary tradition but,
while many postcolonial novels are set in India, few are located in Burma even
though it was annexed by the British and ultimately governed as an Indian province.
Of these texts, fewer still have at their centre a mixed-race consciousness, in particular Anglo-Burmese or Anglo-Indian [2]. Instead, the vast majority of novels that represent colonialism do so either from the point of view of the European coloniser or the oppressed colonised subject. This binary is pervasive in
contemporary literature as well as postcolonial scholarship. Colonialism may seem well explored within literary and academic writing, but this exploration rarely takes place from a mixed-race consciousness—a view that connects both the colonised and
the coloniser.
I begin by tracing the development of the phrase, 'Anglo-Burmese'. I then offer a reading of the novels The Lacquer Lady by F. Tennyson Jesse and Not Out of Hate by Ma Ma Lay (translated by Margaret Aung Thwin in 1991), with reference to George Orwell's Burmese Days. These readings focus on representations of the 'skin' and how it is inscribed by ideals of 'authenticity.' In my analysis, I draw from psychologist Didier Anzieu's theory of the 'skin ego' as well as Sarah Ahmed's 'skin of community.'
Comparing different forms of 'hybrid' identities, including the 'mixed-race' subject, I argue that certain forms of difference defy the intelligibility of colonial systems of taxonomy. These forms can be described as 'not belonging.'