SEATRiP Colloquium Series
"From Hanoi to Saigon: Discourse on Individualism in Mid-Century Vietnam"
Tuan Hoang
University of Notre Dame
Friday, May 29, 2009
12 noon to 2:00 p.m.
INTS 3113
Free and open to the public
Historiography about modern Vietnamese history has long emphasized rupture, exemplified by French conquest and colonial rule, the first two Indochina Wars, and the two decades of division following the Geneva Conference Accords. Although this emphasis is well grounded in documentation, it has also obscured possible continuities. This presentation addresses one such continuity: the discourse about individualist values developed by a number of the urban intelligentsia, especially in Hanoi during late colonialism and Saigon during the divisional period.
The first half of the presentation concerns the transition between late-colonial Hanoi and Republican Saigon. The second half zooms in on a well-respected set of books to illustrate the development of this discourse. The presentation ends with the place of these books in Vietnam today.
Tuan Hoang is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at University of Notre Dame. His dissertation is on the urban culture of urban South Vietnam, focusing on intellectual and ideological developments during the divisional period of Vietnam. A Kaneb pre-doctoral fellowship from University of Notre Dame enables him to spend the academic year 2008-2009 at UCR to work with Prof. David Biggs in UCR's Department of History.
For more information, contact deborah.wong@ucr.edu.
