Minutes 2023
Vietnam Studies Group (VSG) Annual Business Meeting 2023
Minutes
VSG Business Meeting (AAS Boston)
March 17, 2023
7:30 – 9:30 pm
Ex-Comm in attendance: Sarah Grant, Judith Henchy, Tuan Hoang, Tuong Vu
43 people signed the sign-in sheet (see attached scans)
VSG meeting attendees (sign-in sheet): Judith Henchy, Sarah Grant, Jonathan London, Tara Westmor, Shari Tra, John Tran, C. Michele Thompson, Cari Coe, Van Nguyen-Marshall, Ann Marie Leshkowich, Phi-Vân Nguyên, Mitch Aso, Allen Tran, Claire Edington, Merav Shohet, Dat Nguyen, Martha Lincoln, Anh Sy Huy Le, Andrew Wells-Dang, Christina Firpo, Melody Shum, Zhihang Ruan, Alex-Thai Vo, Pamela Corey, Peter Zinoman, Erik Harms, Kevin Li, Ed Miller, Camellia Pham, Eva Hansson, Alvin Bui, Rose Ly O’Brien, Susan Spencer, Hsu Yi Ling, Hue-Tam Ho Tai, Tiên Dung Hà, Martina Nguyen, Christina Schwenkel, Jack Yeager, Yên Mai, Anh Tran, Yi Ning Chang, Thanh Nguyen
1. Welcome (7:38 pm)
Tuan provided an overview of the agenda and executive committee:
- Ex-Comm members from Canada, Great Britain, Italy, United States, Vietnam
- Different ranks (graduate students, junior and senior academics, emeriti, independent scholars)
- Five different disciplines represented on Ex-Comm (Political Science, Women’s Studies, Literature, Anthropology, History)
(Item 9) Financial Report Preview (Tuan via Richard)
AAS had a new treasurer election last year and VSG didn’t have a clear sense of the budget until recently; when the report was received from the new financial director of AAS, the balance is approximately $11,300 and needs to be spent.
Dues and donations during 2022 were $1129.00. The projected balance after expenses (awards & website) is $9311.00.
2. Election held in January
a. Outgoing member: Tuong Vu
b. Reelected members
Graduate reps: Rachel Tough & Đỗ Thị Thanh Thủy
Vũ Minh Hoàng
c. New members
Ben Kerkvliet & Allison Truitt
3. 2022 meeting minutes
a. Available to view online (recorded from virtual Ex-Comm meeting in Spring 2022) and approved over e-mail
4. Committee reports
a. AAS panel sponsored by VSG (Tuan)
- “History, Community and Memory: The Vietnamese Past in the Vietnamese American” Organized by John Tran (University of Washington) and Alvin K. Bui (University of Washington)
b. Travel awards (Tuan)
- $500 for each of the two travel awards
c. Graduate paper prize (Tuong standing in for Sean)
- 9 submissions for the graduate paper prize
- 1 first prize and 2 honorable mentions
- Winner: Ngoc Luong, “Betting on the Future: Financial Activities by Migrant Factory Workers in Vietnam,” University of Bielefeld (Germany)
- Runner Ups: Melody Shum, “Engendering the Revolution: Trần Thị Trâm and the Native Place in Nghệ An (1860-1930),” Northwestern University
- Zhihang Ruan, “State-building and Land Ownership in China and Vietnam: The Critical Juncture of Constitution-Making in the 1970s and 1980s,” Northwestern University
5. VSG website (Judith)
a. Website had to be moved into a different format
b. If searching for VSG the old page cache is still coming up
c. Is it time to move to a different format? Who else might be willing to take on this work? Note: Cari Coe is working with Judith as a library trainee
d. ~11,000 entries that are currently in the database but please make sure to email Cari Coe (caricoe@gmail.com) if you are missing a publication or a publication is misrepresented
6. JVS update (co-editors Martha Lincoln, Van Nguyen-Marshall, and Peter Zinoman)
a. Transition from previous executive committee members (Christina Schwenkel and Charles Keith); commend the work they have done and shifting focus to outreach and mentorship; Ann Marie Leshkowich returning as book reviewer and Martina Nguyen stepping in (update with outgoing JVS members)
b. published issue 17.4 (briefly described this forum) and Nu Anh Tran’s piece coming out as a new experimental piece and submissions relevant to contemporary events in Vietnam
c. JVS is on social media – follow on Twitter (@JVietnamStudies)
d. Van Nguyen-Marhsall (forthcoming and special issues): Vietnamese Landscapes special issue (from Vietnam based scholars from VNU Hanoi Literature Department); COVID in Vietnam; 20th JVS anniversary; 50 years beyond; Biopolitical Vietnam forthcoming in weeks (special eds. Claire Edington and Martha Lincoln)
e. Peter Zinoman on submissions: eager to receive submissions and happy to receive submissions from all ranks (late stage graduate school to emeriti); any discipline, any theoretical orientation; primary focus on Vietnam including Vietnamese American Studies and studies of the Vietnam War; COVID has hurt the pipeline and believe that JVS can turn over work relatively quickly (i.e., shouldn’t take two years to come out)
7. Special presentation
· Routledge Handbook on Contemporary Vietnam (Jonathan London & contributors)
- conversation with Andrew Dang Wells, Jonathan London, and Ann Marie Leshkowich to talk about their new publication for the Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Vietnam (38 chapters spanning multiple themes)
- Introductory Chapter: How to Study Contemporary Vietnam? (“there’s no one right way to study Vietnam”) sets the tone
o Part I: Politics and Society (Andrew Wells-Dang introduced)
o Part II: Economy and Society (Ann Marie Leskhowich introduced); interdisciplinary perspective woven throughout the project and made accessible to a wider readership (e.g., students and general interest readers)
o Part III: Social Life and Institutions (Jonathan London introduced)
8. Member announcements
· Scholarship: publications, exhibitions, creative works, etc.
- Ryan Wolfson-Ford: reader in the SEA reference library at the Library of Congress
o Vietnamese collection at the Library of Congress: doesn’t get much attention (no built in user base of students and faculty); 35,000 monographs and serials at the Asian Reading Room including Asian language text resources; moving image reading room also has a special collection of South Vietnamese films donated by the RVN Embassy in DC (500 films); map room (5000 maps); new Vietnamese refugee newspaper (May 75 – Dec 75 at Indian Gap refugee camp) with accompanying photographs (~3000)
o Contact Ryan to go over the resources and share research to see if it will map onto the research conducted
o Travel funds ($3000) program with an application cycle beginning in August
- Tuan Hoang: Global Vietnamese Catholic Project; working to organize a series of webinars for junior scholars to talk about their work
- Judith Henchy: Southeast Asian Digital Library (SEADL) at NIU (check out the resource)
- Tuong Vu: collaborative project emerged from a conference at the University of Oregon on a current book tour with good reception.
- Jonathan London: edited volume coming out called Vietnam Navigating a Rapidly Changing Economy, Society, and Political Order.
- Mitch Aso: Michelle Thompson and Mitch Aso have an edited volume on the history of medicine coming out (includes three chapters on Vietnam); Mitch Aso and Christina Schwenkel joining the SEAC Council and covering a graduate student paper prize (consider submitting as the deadline extended to April 15th)
- Nôm Institute and Social Sciences: 2021 finished translation in Vietnamese (33rd version in the book).
- Ed Miller: Cambridge History of the Vietnam War (in copyediting); includes more Vietnam Studies in the historiography; 75 chapters across the 3 volumes (potential 2024 publication).
- Andrew Wells-Dang: Youth dialogues organized by the Peace Institute (2 hour online sessions for American and Vietnamese young people to get to know each and talk about Vietnam-US relations).
- SEAC didn’t give the $1000 to VSG because we need to spend down the budget
o Follow up discussion of expenses for 2023-24 after this AAS meeting
o Solicit feedback from the VSG members
o Consider a pre-AAS meeting prior to Seattle AAS next year
o Hue Tam Ho Tai: increase the graduate student paper prize amount
9. Treasurer’s report (Tuan on behalf of Richard): Discussed earlier in meeting
10. Appreciation & closing
End of meeting at 8:46pm