Global Asia Colloquium 

MARCH 31, 2023

4:00-7:00 Room 701 KJCC
(53 Washington Square South) Elevator Floor 7E
 

Asian and Asian American Studies have long been split along institutional, epistemological, and political lines. But scholars working at the intersection of the two fields have challenged the entrenched boundaries that have siloed the two fields. Vietnam studies has mirrored these dynamics. 

War and its aftermath––the mass exodus and scattering of refugees across the western world––stretched the Vietnamese body politic into something we may call global Vietnam. But Vietnamese area studies and Vietnamese American studies have largely developed as separate fields of knowledge. One emphasizes training in the Vietnamese language and concentrates on the people, places, and events inside Vietnam. The other probes Vietnamese immigrant experiences as an American story and analyzes them within the framework of race and ethnicity studies. Yet, the dense and enduring connections between the diaspora and Vietnam militate against the study of one in isolation from the other. 

This event brings together scholars who bridge the divide. The interdisciplinary panel features Ivan Small (Anthropology), Marguerite Nguyen (English), Quan Tran (American Studies), and Y Thien Nguyen (Sociology) whose research illuminate the diverse linkages that constitute global Vietnam and represent some of the most innovative efforts in Vietnam studies. Following the research presentations, Nu-Anh Tran (History) will moderate a discussion with the panelists about the tensions, limitations, and possibilities of straddling Vietnamese and Vietnamese American studies.