Mu Lung Hsu

Mu-Lung Hsu (Chit Minn) is a doctoral candidate in Religious Studies. His research has focused on religion, charity and welfare provision, and humanitarian actions in contemporary Myanmar. His MA thesis research titled "The Culture of Looking for Money (Zhao-Qian)" explores ethnographically how Yunnanese Chinese communities construct and legitimate the sense of being Yunnanese and being Chinese in relation to ethnic others through informal economic activities of high risks and ambiguous legality and through communal philanthropies. His doctoral research project focuses on Free Funeral Service Societies -- relief organizations that emerged in Myanmar in the 1990s in response to rising funerary cost and have since grown into a nation-wide network dedicated to social welfare provision, emergency aid, and disaster relief for all "without discrimination of race and religion." Working Dr. Juliane Schober, Hsu's research contrasts Free Funeral Service Societies, as a Buddhist social movement dedicated to promoting the welfare of the general public, with current Buddhist ultranationalist movements, and in doing so explores emergent ways in which the modern relevance of Buddhism and its authority is sought through reinterpreted Buddhist practices and soteriology. Hsu has been awarded the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Dissertation Fellowship in Buddhist Studies for his ethnographic research project titled, “Engaging Suffering: Free Funeral Service Societies and a Socially Engaged Buddhist Soteriology in Contemporary Myanmar.” He is expecting to return to Myanmar In the 2020-2021 academic year for his field research with Free Funeral Service Societies.