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Matt Schissler is a Lecturer in Anthropology and Buddhist Studies in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne.

Matt is an anthropologist and historian studying religion, violence, and technology. A Myanmar specialist, he has worked in and on the country for nearly two decades, including eight years as a member of local human rights and other civil society organisations. His first monograph, provisionally titled Twisted Paths: A Moral History of the Rohingya Genocide, analyses the longer arc of Buddhist nationalist projects in Myanmar and the conjunctures that eventually produced genocide. Matt was also involved in the first efforts to warn the company Meta of harms in Myanmar caused by its platform Facebook, and continues to have a research interest in the relationship between global corporations, media technologies, and state violence.

Matt has published in the Journal of Genocide Research, Journal of Contemporary Asia, and in edited volumes from Oxford University Press, Australian National University, and National University of Singapore. He has also contributed to Working Paper series at Yale and Oxford universities as well as thirty-six original research reports on human rights in Myanmar. From 2015-18, he co-convened the Myanmar Media and Society Research Project, hosted by St Antony’s College, Oxford, which ran a training program for young activists in Myanmar, completed research projects on anti-Muslim discourses and local efforts to disrupt violence, and produced a Burmese-language book of oral histories, essays, and poetry that sought to valorise multi-religious life.

His research has been supported by international research awards from the Robert HN Ho Family Foundation for Buddhist Studies, Wenner-Gren Foundation, and Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, as well as US-based awards including from the Fulbright-Hays Program, National Science Foundation, Social Science Research Council, US Institute of Peace, and the Blakemore-Freeman Foundation.

Matt holds a PhD and MA in Anthropology from the University of Michigan, an MSt in International Human Rights Law from the University of Oxford, and a BA (Politics and Rhetoric/Film Studies) from Whitman College.

Dr

Matt Schissler

Lecturer in Buddhist Studies

Faculty of Arts

Dr

Matt Schissler

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