Call for Conference Papers: "Beyond Teleologies: AlternativeVoices and Histories in Colonial Viet Nam"
From: Judith Henchy
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
Sent: Friday, September 01, 2006 11:24 PM
Subject: [Vsg] Call for Conference Papers: "Beyond Teleologies: AlternativeVoices and Histories in Colonial Viet Nam"
The Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle (USA), in conjunction with the College of Arts and Science, announces the start of a multi-year research initiative in Viet Nam Studies, "Alternative Voices and Histories in Viet Nam: Colonial Modernities and Post-colonial Narratives." Its aims are: to bring together scholars from around the world at three conferences focusing on new interpretations of Vietnamese history and historiography; to provide a forum for recent, disparate work in new sources and under-researched topics to critically engage with one another; and to publish the results for the wider academic community.
The conference series will consist of the following three workshops: "Beyond Teleologies: alternative voices and histories in colonial Viet Nam" (March 2007), "Beyond Dichotomies: alternative voices and histories in post-colonial Viet Nam" (autumn 2007), and "Beyond Borders: alternative voices and histories of the 20th century Vietnamese diaspora" (autumn 2008). A call for papers for the first workshop follows below. Calls for papers for the second and third workshops will be issued at later dates.
The workshop series is based on the understanding that modern Vietnamese historiography has been unduly dominated by several particular and at times overlapping discourses reflective of the prevalent ideological presumptions of the 20th century, such as:
· those that privilege the perspectives, interests, and actions of a central state or states;
· those that impose nationalist and traditionalist notions on Vietnamese history and culture;
· those that subsume Vietnamese revolutionary visions and movements solely under communist teleologies; and
· those that seek to enforce Cold War rhetorical postures by excluding, externalizing and de-legitimizing those that do not fit simplistic binaries.
By contrast, the workshops will highlight academic work that complicates, challenges and counters these paradigms, thereby enriching and expanding our understanding of the variety of modern Vietnamese historical actors, factors, and epistemologies, and suggesting the contours of alternative models. They will focus, for instance, on local, regional, cross-border or transnational identities, non-nationalist socio-cultural phenomena such as religious revivalist movements, the rich modernist possibilities explored in the 1920s and 1930s, non-communist thought in Viet Nam's revolutionary anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism, and so-called "third force" groups on the margins of, or in opposition to, the Republic of Viet Nam. In general, the organizers welcome papers that engage a broad range of sources and literatures. In particular, we expect a considerable number of conference papers to highlight the marked heterogeneity of Viet Nam's south, a region thus far comparatively under-researched in Viet Nam Studies.
The organizers are
Christoph Giebel, Assoc. Prof. of History and International Studies, giebel@u.washington.edu and
Judith Henchy, Head, Southeast Asia Section, University of Washington Libraries, and Lecturer in International Studies, judithh@u.washington.edu
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International Call for Papers
The Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle (USA) invites academics, advanced graduate students, and independent scholars to submit paper proposals for the first workshop, "Beyond Teleologies: alternative voices and histories in colonial Viet Nam,"
to be held on the Seattle campus of the University of Washington from Thursday, March 1st, to Sunday, March 4th, 2007.
Prof. Patricia Pelley (Texas Tech University), award-winning author of “Postcolonial Vietnam: new histories of the national past” (2002), will give the keynote address.
For this workshop, we are seeking papers that engage the broad themes of alternative voices and counter-histories for the period of French colonial rule, as well as the first phase of the Franco-Viet Minh war in all areas of the country known today as Viet Nam. Moving beyond the ideological demands of colonialism, traditionalism, and nationalism, we seek to re-evaluate various political, social and cultural movements and phenomena of the colonial era within their particular contexts and meanings. Therefore, without diminishing the historical centrality of 1945, the workshop will problematize teleologies of 1945 in revolutionary-nationalist historiographies; i.e., the ways in which colonial-era histories often have come to be interpreted merely through their supposed linkage to, and subsumption under, the August Revolution as historical endpoint. Papers might rather engage, for example, those social and intellectual histories that illuminate mentalitйs, or modes of thinking and being in the modernizing colonial world, and investigate the symbolic order and semantics of colonial power. Such topics might include explorations of food, fashion, travel, advertising, performance arts, or literature. Other papers might be concerned with certain religious activities, social identities and political organizations beyond those that so far have been paradigmatically privileged. Research on “Cochinchina” up to 1949 is particularly encouraged.
Please submit (1) a paper abstract, (2) a brief statement how the paper will engage the larger themes and concerns of the workshop, and (3) a short C.V. to:
Christoph Giebel & Judith Henchy
Center for Southeast Asian Studies
University of Washington, box 353650
Seattle, WA 98195-3650, USA
seac@u.washington.edu
Deadline: Monday, October 30, 2006
Participants should agree to submit their draft papers no later than three weeks prior to the workshop, be willing to provide detailed comments on other select papers, engage in group deliberations during the entire workshop, and thereafter commit to actively participate in periodic follow-up discussions and commentary for the planned publications. Participants will receive a modest travel subvention from the organizers, but will be expected to cover most of their expenses through other institutional funds.