Minutes of the VSG Meeting 2008
Vietnam Studies Group Annual Meeting
7pm, April 4th 2008 at AAS in Atlanta
There is a new prize in Southeast Asian Studies, the Kahin Prize which was launched at AAS, Funded mainly by the SEAP from Cornell.
1. Self-introduction of the Chair and Board Members
Chair: C. Michele Thompson, SCSU – history of Vietnamese medicine,
Executive Committee:
Judith Henchy – University of Washington, studies Vietnamese history in the 1920s/30s
Ken MacLean - Clark University – Vietnamese and Burmese ethnographic history
Lien Hang Nguyen – University of Kentucky - north Vietnamese perspective in the war 1953-75.
Christina Schwenkel – U.C. Riverside – anthropology – global history and memory
Jack Yeager – Louisana State University - French literature from Vietnam
Lorraine Paterson – Cornell University – memoir and biography from Vietnam and Cambodia
2. Attendees Self-Introductions and Area of Focus (this list is not comprehensive)
Thomas Englebert – University of Hamburg, Germany - Vietnamese history
Mark Alves, Montgomery College – history of the Vietnamese language
Chris Giebel – University of Washington, Seattle – history and international studies
Melissa Pashigian, Bryn Mawr College
Ann Marie Leshkowich – Holy Cross
Stephen O’Harrow - Hawaii
Edwin Moise – Clemson University
Erik Harms – Duke at the moment and will be starting to teach at Yale in the autumn
Rick Ruth – United States Naval Academy, Thailand and Vietnam
Chan Phan – Harvard University
Giang Phan – University of Hawaii
George Dutton – UCLA
Julie Pham – JVS/Cambridge
Mariam Lam – UCR/JVS
Louis Schwartz – Kutztown University
Tran Thi Thu Trang – University of Ottawa – Globalization and Development Studies
Nhung Tuyet Tran – University of Toronto
Ed Miller – Dartmouth College
Christina Firpo – Calpoly SLO - University – Working on Eurasians and Prostitution
Ninh Hien – Cornell University
Cari Coe – UCLA
Pam McElwee – Arizona State
Christian Lentz – Duke/Cornell University
Kirsty Kelly – University of Wisconsin-Madison
Peter Zinoman – UC Berkeley
Cam Nguyen – UC Berkeley
3. Minutes from the VSG General Meeting of 2007
These were unanimously approved.
4. Chair’s Report on SEAC Meeting – Michele Thompson
SEASSI is doing well and still a very solid language program – please push students to apply for it It will probably be held at University of Madison, Wisconsin for 5 more years.
Editor of JAS said that there has been a dearth of book reviews. They do not actually have a built-in database of people to contact, so if you are interested in doing a review for them then you should contact them.
There also seems to be fewer articles on SEA being published at the moment – people are encouraged to submit more articles on SEA.
The AAS officer for development said that they are trying to arrange for college instructors to be taken to SEA to encourage them to explore more in the area.
Chris Giebel mentioned that AAS is trying to innovate and liven things up. They are thinking of how to perhaps change the format of AAS. They have suggested that perhaps they should have seminar panels with attendees reading papers ahead of time and focusing on particular types of books. They are open to all kinds of suggestions.
Ed Moise asked that if such a format was put into place would the papers be available to audience members prior to the panel e.g. would the papers be placed on-line well ahead of time?
They also made a point that in recent years certain disciplines were under-represented, for example, political science is under-represented.
Idea from the TLC Group which is that they invite a distinguished speaker to give a talk. They don’t cover their trip expenses on the assumption that it is an honor for them to be giving the talk.
Thompson concluded by saying that SEAC has given VSG an award (the exact amount is unclear at this point) to supplement the grad prize with a travel stipend to be awarded only if the prize winner attends AAS and VSG to receive the award.
5) Treasurer’s Report (David Biggs)
Please see attached.
VSG members voted a "Thanks" to the anonymous donor who made a sizeable donation to the Graduate Student Prize.
6) Report on the List Serve and Website (Judith Henchy).
There are now between 600-610 people signed up on the list serve. Judith has the same student working for her as before.
Judith encouraged people to update their details on the International Scholars’ Directory so that people can find scholars working on particular topic.
The University of Washington library wants VSG to have its own hits page because VSG gets so many hits and it confuses the library hits’ records.
Voting for new members of the VSG Executive Committee was done on-line.
There were problems with the on-line voting procedure at this point – it showed the number of votes each candidate received and was not secret in that regard..
Luckily there were only three candidates for three positions so it was fine!
Also, the University of Washington website may be updated soon.
7) Report on the Texas Tech Conference (Ed Miller)
This conference was primarily about perspectives on the 40th anniversary of the Tet offensive.
Many papers dealt with the role of the news media and veteran journalists.
There were also several Vietnamese perspectives on the Tet offensive.
There were also panels on non-Tet topics.
Videotapes of the sessions are available on-line at http://vietnam.ttu.edu
Next year the conference will be held on March 13th/14th 2009. It will primarily be on the role of Thailand, Cambodia and Laos in the Vietnam war. The deadline for papers will be in the fall and there will be call for papers put out on the VSG list.
8) AAS, 2009 (Chicago)
There will be a call for panel proposals for VSG sponsorship. The AAS deadline is about August 1st. The VSG deadline will be one month before the AAS one,
Generally, the panel that the VSG chooses to sponsor is not turned down so people are encouraged to get panel proposals in.
Other AASs – 2010- Philadelphia, 2011- Hawaii which will be combined with ICAS,
2012 – Toronto.
9) New business, old business, discussion and votes
New Business
a) Continued subsidy of $500 from the dues to pay for web support for the list serve. This was proposed by Peter Zinoman, seconded by Ed Moise and a unanimous vote in favor was taken by all present.
b) Support for the Graduate Student Prize. The suggested amount out of the dues is $100 with voluntary contributions from members. The prize itself is $500 and graduate students are encouraged to become dues paying members of VSG.
c) There was then a call for dues and forms were distributed.
Old Business
d) What to do about the issue of refreshments at VSG meetings at AAS? It is not really feasible to cater from the outside and $100 would be a “laughable amount to spend on a group this size.”
Most people at the meeting felt that this was not really an issue.
Erik Harms mentioned that if people did not seem to be attending the meeting, we could rethink this issue.
The Executive Committee had also discussed the issue of refreshments and felt it was not feasible.
10) Announcements and News
a) Graduate Student Prize
Miriam Lam gave a report on the new VSG graduate student prize. It was won by Martina Nguyen for a paper on fashion history and the ao daiin particular, and Claudine Ang was given an honorable mention for a paper on Nam Viet.
Both winning papers were excellent although there were only seven or eight entries so more people are encouraged to apply .
Wynn Wilcox set up a web site so the committee could easily read all the papers.
SEAC gives travel subventions to graduate students – and this prize can supplement the winner of the prize attending AAS.
Part of the prize from now on is also VSG membership for a year!
b) Awards and Nominations for Awards
No mention of awards for VSG members.
c) SEAC Prize and Reception
It seems that the activities of the VSG have caused other Southeast Asian countries to step up their activities too.
d) Seattle Workshop on Vietnam (Chris Giebel)
In May there will be the second of a trilogy of workshops on “Alternative Voices on Vietnam.” The organizers at UW have been overwhelmed by the interest.
Participants are coming from Vietnam, Australia, Canada and the U.S. The keynote speaker is Ngo Vinh Long
There will be a website with more conference information in due course.
e) Other Conferences
History of Medicine – 1st ever conference – Siem Reap, January 2007. 2nd in Penang Malaysia January 2008. Both conferences had several papers on Vietnam.
Euroviet 6th – 8th of June in Hamburg.
At Euroviet in Hamburg, Keith Taylor from Cornell will be the keynote speaker.
There will be eight panels in different disciplines.
Information about the upcoming conference in Vietnam in December was asked for. It will be held at Hanoi National University and a call for papers will be sent out on the VSG listserv when it is received.
e) Journal of Vietnamese Studies (Peter Zinoman)
There have been five issues and the sixth one is nearly finished. There will be three per year. Submissions are coming in at a steady pace.
There will also be a special issue on Ethnic Minorities in October 2008 edited by Philip Taylor.
The institutional subscriptions have been as predicted but the individual subscriptions have leveled off. Therefore, everyone is encouraged to get an individual subscription to help support the Journal.
They have also received some money from the Ford Foundation to pay for translation of Vietnamese articles into English for the JVS. People were encouraged to help them find appropriate articles. This is meant to be for research by Vietnamese nationals, so if it was in French, it could also be translated into English.
Also, translation of rare documents from Vietnamese into English could fall within this grant too which is part of a Ford Foundation grant.
11) Other Announcements and News from Members
VASI
The administration of VASI has moved to Berkeley from University of Washington.
It is still going to be run for 4 weeks in Hanoi and 4 weeks in Saigon.
There are 12 students attending it – they are federally funded.
This year the number of graduate applicants has been quite low so undergraduates will have to fill up the quota.
There are two resident directors, one in each city. Gerard Sasary (?) of University of Ohio is running it in Hanoi.
Fulbright
For study abroad programs to Vietnam – Fulbright has encouraged more high school teachers to go.
They are also opportunities for teachers to teach on a Fulbright in Vietnam or for students to do so before a Ph.D. is completed. Fulbright is especially promoting Vietnam, Nepal and the Philippines as locations for Fulbright teachers to be placed.
There is also the traditional Fulbright scholar in residence program.
Agent Orange
Pam McElwee also mentioned that an article on Agent Orange published in the New York Times raised $40,000 for Agent Orange work. She thanked VSG members for helping to publicize this issue.
12) New and Old Members of the Executive Committee
The newly elected members to the VSG Ex Comm were Christina Schwenkel, Joe Hannah and Ngo Than Nhan.
The old members were released from the ExComm with a vote of thanks: Lorraine Paterson, Frank Proschan and Jack Yeager.