About

“Silences and Reverberations: Studying Historical and Contemporary Vietnam,” a one-day online symposium, brings together junior and senior scholars, graduate and undergraduate students, and interested members of the public to consider the study of historical and contemporary Vietnam from a range of disciplinary perspectives. Structured around opening and closing keynote addresses and three 75-minute thematic roundtable discussions, panels will collectively lay out the scope of Vietnamese Studies and explore possible future directions. Speakers from across North America, Europe, and Vietnam, with specializations in anthropology, history, Asian languages and cultures, geography, political philosophy, and sociology will seek to answer questions that showcase the diversity of fields and methodologies that are essential to understanding the richness of Vietnam’s past and present, and its future in a rapidly developing global and local environment.

The symposium has four related goals. First, it is aimed to exchange and develop methodological innovations across multiple disciplines engaged in the study of Vietnam, including area studies, the humanities, and the social sciences. Second, it is designed to promote to the wider academic communities the study and teaching of Vietnam in relation to East, South, and Southeast Asia. Third, it is designed to help emerging scholars expand and deepen their connections with other Vietnam Studies scholars. Finally, it is designed to initiate comparative discussions with other East, South, and Southeast Asia specialists, who will help moderate the panels.

Date: Friday, May 28, 2021

Time: 10:30 AM-6:00 PM EST

Location: Online; Register here

Organizers:

Merav Shohet
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
Boston University

Dat M. Nguyen
Postdoctoral Researcher
NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW)

For inquiries, please contact the organizers at: vnsympos@bu.edu

This symposium is sponsored by:

Boston University
Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs (CURA)
Center for the Humanities (BUCH)
The Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future

Association for Asian Studies
Vietnam Studies Group, Sub-Committee of the Southeast Asia Council