| PhD Fellow | |
| Herkunftsinstitution: | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| Zeit am Institut: | 2026 |
| Förderung: | IEG Stipendium |
| Forschungsthema: | Cross-border Lives of Magical Monks in 1941 - 1957 Mainland Southeast Asia |
| "My project explores Buddhist sovereignty at the periphery of modern Asia. While the European empires conquered by divide and rule through surveillance and national borders, Buddhists emphasized their religious sovereignty by foregrounding religious historicity and intraregional connectivity. This research thus examines Buddhist sovereignty pursued by miracle-making monks from multiple ethnicities and lineages along the borderlands of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Burma during the late colonial period. Drawing from French Sûreté files, textual and oral biographies, walking maps, amulets, and monuments, I argue that these itinerant magical monks are active agents of decolonization." |
(c) Evoto, Shalcia Johnson
