Passing of Professor Ngo Vinh Long

From: Ngo Thanh Nhan <ngo.thanh.nhan@temple.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2023 7:32 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Cc: an.t.nguyen@maine.edu
Subject: [Vsg] U of Maine: April 20th Event: Remembering Prof. Ngo Vinh Long

Thursday  April 20, 2023  

          12:30-2:00 p.m. 

REMEMBERING PROFESSOR NGO VINH LONG: INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED HISTORIAN AND ANTIWAR ACTIVIST

In the Bangor Room, Memorial Union, The University of Maine, Orono, Maine and with Zoom Connectivity

Speakers: Doug Allen, UMaine Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, An Nguyen, UMaine PhD Student in History, and Other Speakers

Ngo Vinh Long was Professor of History at the University of Maine from 1985 until his death in Bangor on October 12, 2022. He was a courageous and influential antiwar and anti-imperialist active scholar and scholar activist. He was the most prominent antiwar Vietnamese in the United States during the Vietnam/Indochina War while he was a student at Harvard (1964-1978). His remarkable life, teaching, scholarship, and activism leave us with an exemplary legacy not only for Maine, but also for countless others in Vietnam, the United States, and throughout the world.

For more information on Ngo Vinh Long’s remarkable life, accomplishments, and legacy, see An Thuy Nguyen and Douglas Allen, “Remembering Ngo Vinh Long, Renowned Scholar of Vietnam and Antiwar Activist,” Critical Asian Studies (Jan. 2023):
https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2023.2167220

The Remembering Professor Ngo Vinh Long event on April 20th will be a celebration of his life and legacy. The program’s focus will be on Ngo Vinh Long and the University of Maine. Speakers will include faculty, students, graduates, and others from UMaine who will share how they were deeply connected with and transformed by their experiences with Prof. Ngo Vinh Long.

This will be an in-person gathering in the Bangor Room, Memorial Union, The University of Maine, in Orono. The program will start at 12:30 p.m. and continue until about 2:00 p.m. The Department of History will then host a reception in the Bangor Room, 2:00-3:00 p.m., with refreshments and the opportunity to socialize, interact, and share stories about Ngo Vinh Long and his continuing legacy.

The April 20th event will have Zoom connectivity for Long’s friends, colleagues, family, and others who cannot join in person and who are encouraged to join this UMaine celebration of his life and legacy. 

Zoom link https://maine.zoom.us/j/3657262020  

The Spring 2023 Socialist and Marxist Studies Series is sponsored by the Marxist and Socialist Studies Minor, co-sponsored by Maine Peace Action Comm. (MPAC) and Division of Student Affairs, with support of College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Dept. of Philosophy. Speakers do not necessarily present socialist or Marxist viewpoints. For additional information, contact Doug Allen at dallen@maine.edu.

PLEASE ANNOUNCE TO CLASSES AND INTERESTED GROUPS AND LIST IN CALENDARS. PLEASE SHARE WITH FRIENDS, COLLEAGUES, STUDENTS, AND OTHERS WHO MAY BE INTERESTED.

In complying with the letter and spirit of applicable laws and pursuing its own goals of diversity, the University of Maine System does not discriminate on the grounds of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, transgender status, gender, gender identity or expression, ethnicity, national origin, citizenship status, familial status, ancestry, age, disability physical or mental, genetic information, or veterans or military status in employment, education, and all other programs and activities. The University provides reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities upon request. The following person has been designated to handle inquiries regarding non- discrimination policies: Director of Equal Opportunity, 101 Boudreau Hall, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469-5754, 207.581.1226, TTY 711 (Maine Relay System). 

--

Douglas Allen

Professor Emeritus of Philosophy

Department of Philosophy

The University of Maine

5776 The Maples

Orono, ME 04469-5776 USA

Phone: (207) 866-7782

Email: dallen@maine.edu

umaine.edu/philosophy/douglas-allen

From: Ngo Thanh Nhan <ngo.thanh.nhan@temple.edu>
Sent: Sunday, March 26, 2023 1:06 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Vsg] Full Zoom Recording of the 3/17 Celebration of the Life, Work, and Legacy of Professor Ngo Vinh Long

Dear colleagues,

Here are the information about the Celebration

Link to program (with attached documents):
mlp.cs.nyu.edu/folk.arts/NgoVinhLong/program.html
Full YouTube Celebration recording:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l07NloCo1Kg (1:56:35)
If you have comments, please send to ngovinhlong.celebration@gmail.com

Thank you very much,
Ngo Thanh Nhan

On Sat, Oct 15, 2022 at 9:41 AM Cau Thai <cvthai75@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear All.

On the day of Ngô Vĩnh Long's cremation, I would like to share some photos, courtesy of his family & friend.

Calvin Thai

Independent

PS: Photo descriptions are mine.

From: David Marr <david.marr@anu.edu.au>

Sent: Saturday, October 15, 2022 10:17 PM

To: Dieu-Hien T Hoang <dieuhien@uw.edu>

Cc: vsg@uw.edu

Subject: Re: [Vsg] Prof. Ngo Vinh Long

I was very saddened to hear that Anh Long had passed away.  We first came together helping to form branches of the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars, and Anh Long took part in several of my seminars at Cornell in 1969-70.  His ‘Thoi Bao Ga’ newsletter reached many groups.  I remember especially his support and assistance to our Indochina Resource Center in Washington and Berkeley in 1971-75.  We continued to correspond on occasion after I departed for Australia in 1975.

David Marr

Emeritus professor

ANU

Sent from my iPad

On Sat, Oct 15, 2022 at 2:03 AM Scott Laderman <laderman@d.umn.edu> wrote:

I can't say that I knew Ngo Vinh Long well, but I deeply admired him as a scholar and a person.  I first met Long at a conference about 15 or 20 years ago when I joined him and several others for lunch.  I remember being touched by the interest he showed in my work.  Long later contributed a wonderful chapter to a book Ed Martini and I co-edited (Four Decades On).  Perhaps most significantly, he not only allowed me to interview him for my ongoing project on Nguyen Thai Binh, but he shared with me some materials from his files.  (Long and Binh were contemporaries and friends.)

I didn't know that Long was seriously ill, which made seeing this announcement all the more jarring.  I will remember him as a warm and generous historian and human being.

Scott Laderman

University of Minnesota, Duluth

On Sat, Oct 15, 2022 at 7:24 AM David Brown <nworbd@gmail.com> wrote:

Ngô Vĩnh Long was my friend for more than fifty years. Like Huê-Tâm, I arrived in Cambridge in the autumn of 1969, invited for a fellowship at what was becoming the Kennedy School of Government. What I want to underline here was Long's extraordinary kindness to me then and especially to my very homesick bride. He had a wall full of Vietnamese language books that he encouraged Tuyết to borrow. She did that, and read voraciously, filling gaps in a high school education that in wartime circumstances had been rather hit-or-miss. Long also welcomed us both into the life of the small Vietnamese community at Harvard and B.U. -- this also dulled the pain of my wife's recent  separation from family back in Saigon.

David Brown

writer/analyst, erstwhile US diplomat

Fresno, California USA

On Fri, Oct 14, 2022 at 11:45 PM Guillemot François <francois.guillemot@ens-lyon.fr> wrote:

Dear colleagues,

I join you all in sharing this moment of sadness regarding the passing of Professor Ngo Vinh Long.

He leaves us a legacy of important works on the revolution, women and the peasantry in Vietnam.

My thoughts are with his family and friends.

All the best

FG

On Fri, Oct 14, 2022 at 2:02 PM Davis,Bradley C.(History) <davisbrad@easternct.edu> wrote:

Everyone,

This is awful news.

Like many of us, I first met Ngo Vinh Long when I was a graduate student. He gave a stimulating talk for a workshop that Christoph Giebel organized in Seattle, and I had the good fortune to take Long for coffee one morning. It was the first of many coffees with Long, continuing after my move to New England. Anyone who knew him can appreciate his seriousness as a historian and his energetic engagement with contemporary Vietnam. However, he also had a learned and sharp sense of humor. At a workshop in New Haven, speaking in Vietnamese and English with flourishes in Chinese, I heard him repeat one of his favorite translingual chơi từ. When someone from the PRC asked him how things were going in Vietnam, he replied “越南越來越好 – Vietnam is better and better,” a play on “Yuenan” (Vietnam) and “yuelai yuehao” (better and better). He could mix levity with gravitas, often to make a sharp point.

As were Pierre, Christian, Nhu, and so many others, I was recently in touch with Long about his work. In my case, he had agreed to write a review of Alec Holcombe’s Mass Mobilization in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. My last note from him conveyed both his enthusiasm for writing about Alec’s book as well as his optimism about us meeting for coffee again. Sadly, I add this short remembrance on a Friday afternoon, rather than announcing new words from an old friend.

Brad

Bradley Camp Davis (he, him, his)

Associate Professor

Department of History

Coordinator of Asian Studies Minor (Fall 2022)

Webb Hall 333 – Fall 2022 Office Hours: MF3-4, W4-5

Eastern Connecticut State University

83 Windham Street

Willimantic CT 06226 US

Reviews Editor, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

Series Co-Editor, HdO Section 3 – Southeast Asia, Brill

From: Vsg <vsg-bounces@mailman11.u.washington.edu> on behalf of Lentz, Christian Cunningham <cclentz@email.unc.edu>

Date: Friday, October 14, 2022 at 4:19 PM

To: vsg@uw.edu <vsg@uw.edu>

Cc: amink <amink@nationalhumanitiescenter.org>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] Prof. Ngo Vinh Long

Dear VSG,

I join in the sadness shared here about the recent passing of Ngo Vinh Long. Chia buồn thật đây.

I had the honor of hosting thầy Long in July for a teacher-training workshop at the National Humanities Center. Although he met with us on zoom, he delivered a rousing lecture on memory of the Vietnam War and held the audience of thirty K-12 teachers rapt. His formal presentation aside, he spoke of a personal biography that became a source of inspiration for us all. He related his experience as a cartographer in 1950s southern Vietnam; that he was the first person from Vietnam to graduate from Harvard; his arguments with the hawks of Cambridge—Kissinger, Bundy, and Rostow—while a graduate student there; how he survived an assassination attempt after a lecture; his aim in Before the Revolution to put French colonialism into an otherwise historically thin analysis of the US experience in Vietnam; and, finally, the pride he felt working with historians in Vietnam late in his career.

When the audience encouraged him to write a memoire, he politely demurred, saying that he did not think his life significant and that he had other more important projects to complete. So, we can add humility to the list of his admirable qualities. I now regret that I, too, missed a chance to gather more information on what was a remarkable life. He touched many lives as a teacher, scholar, and friendly colleague. He is already missed.

Christian C. Lentz

UNC Chapel Hill

From: Cau Thai <cvthai75@gmail.com>

Sent: Friday, October 14, 2022 10:29 AM

To: Pierre Asselin <passelin@sdsu.edu>

Cc: vsg@uw.edu

Subject: Re: [Vsg] Prof. Ngo Vinh Long

Like many others who knew Ngô Vĩnh Long, I was shocked when I received the sad news from a mutual friend. Less than two weeks ago, he briefly mentioned issues of his left eye and right lung. But he continued to teach and to have good spirits. His only complaint was that his poor eyesight would interfere with his ability to take photos of the autumn leaves in Maine.

Throughout the years of knowing each other, we did not discuss his past anti-war activities. Instead, we both focused on how to contribute to the betterment of Vietnam. I learned from him and I enjoyed his sense of humor. He will be missed!

Calvin Thai

Independent

From: Pierre Asselin <passelin@sdsu.edu>

Sent: Friday, October 14, 2022 9:50 AM

To: Benedict Kerkvliet <ben.kerkvliet@anu.edu.au>

Cc: vsg@uw.edu

Subject: Re: [Vsg] Prof. Ngo Vinh Long

Dear All:

I first met Prof. Long at a conference in the late 1990s that Lien-Hang, if I remember correctly, had organized at Penn State or UPenn.  He was chair of my panel.  I was young, and I was confident.  In his commentary after my presentation, Prof. Long absolutely obliterated me and my paper/presentation.  After I left the conference, I was only young.  I flew back to Hawaii with one carry-on that contained my first suit and tie, bought for the occasion, and the very last vestiges of my dignity.

After a period of feeling sorry for myself and harboring dark, borderline evil thoughts about Prof. Long, I went over my presentation and paper, only to notice for the first time, really, that there was tremendous validity to the issues Prof. Long had raised, and that my paper was, in fact, deeply flawed.  Thereafter, the simple aspiration of avoiding another public (and well-deserved) humiliation prompted me to set new standards for rigor and diligence for myself.  In other words, I became a far more assiduous scholar.  I also became obsessed with archival materials, which I came to see as key to validate core arguments.

I never got to tell Prof. Long any of this.  I did, however, have a chance to reconnect with him very recently, after he agreed to write a chapter for a volume I'm editing.  Deep down, I thought, "How cool is that?!"; the man who way back had seemed to think so poorly of me now thought I was worthy of his own writing.  I got this weird sense of professional validation from this.  Our last communication was about a month ago today, when he apologized for a delay in submitting the revised version of his chapter owing to a condition in his eyes that was getting worse.  

Ngo Vinh Long made me a better scholar, as he made, I'm sure, several other members of this list better, too.  That's a pretty damn good legacy.

Pierre       

Pierre Asselin

Professor of History - Dwight E. Stanford Chair in US Foreign Relations

San Diego State University

History Department

5500 Campanile Dr.

San Diego, CA 92182-6050

From: Benedict Kerkvliet <ben.kerkvliet@anu.edu.au>

Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2022 4:19 PM

To: Hue-Tam Tai <huetamtai@gmail.com>; Marc Gilbert <mgilbert@hpu.edu>; David Biggs <biggsbiggs@gmail.com>; vsg@uw.edu

Subject: Re: [Vsg] Prof. Ngo Vinh Long

I heard from Long a few months ago; he mentioned he had been ill. I had no idea he was seriously ill. I grieve with his family, colleagues, and friends.

Ben

Ben Kerkvliet

Emeritus Professor

Australian National University

From: Hue-Tam Tai <huetamtai@gmail.com>

Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2022 1:46 PM

To: Marc Gilbert <mgilbert@hpu.edu>; David Biggs <biggsbiggs@gmail.com>; vsg@uw.edu

Subject: Re: [Vsg] Prof. Ngo Vinh Long

Long and his then girlfriend Hoi Chan were some of the first people I met when I arrived in Boston/Cambridge in 1966. There were at the time fewer than 10 Vietnamese, all students in the Boston/Cambridge area. Long and Hoi Chan were at Harvard and Cambridge as juniors and I came as a freshman at Brandeis. I was in awe of both of them.

Soon, it transpired that Long was very involved in anti-war activities while I was intent on staying out of politics-- my father was still subject to a suspended death sentence after his release from Con Son only 2.5 years earlier---and I was ambivalent about the ultimate outcome of the war. I'd read Koestler's Darkness at Noon at home and learned quite a bit about recent history from people involved in politics since the 1920s.

i left Cambridge in 1972 and did not return until 1980.

By then, Long had become the target of attacks by refugees, especially when he tried to defend the postwar policies. I never questioned his love of country but I disagreed with him about those policies.

After many years, we bumped into each other in Hanoi of all places. It was in the mid-1990s. Long, always an activist, had become involved in supporting reform policies. I wish we'd have more time to engage in deep discussions. He'd gotten divorced from Hoi Chan but seemed happy in his second marriage.

His passing, especially after his long and painful illness, saddens me.

Hue-Tam Ho Tai

Harvard University emerita

From: Diane Fox <dnfox70@gmail.com>

Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2022 9:26 PM

To: David Biggs <biggsbiggs@gmail.com>

Cc: vsg@uw.edu

Subject: Re: [Vsg] Prof. Ngo Vinh Long

David and Cau Thai--Thank you both for this hard news. It hit me like a blow. I am so sorry, though wonder if he was perhaps relieved, since he had been ill a long time?  

His book, "Before the Revolution" went a long way towards helping many of my students get a grounding in life in colonial Viet Nam. 

Honoring his life and his work, and hoping to hear remembrances from others of you,

Diane

(Diane Fox, PhD anthropology, retired

writing, currently based in California)

From: Cau Thai <cvthai75@gmail.com>

Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2022 5:46 PM

To: vsg@uw.edu

Subject: [Vsg] Ngô Vĩnh Long (1944-2022)

Dear List,

Historian Ngô Vĩnh Long passed away the morning of 10/12/22, in Maine, USA, after a long illness.

https://www.diendan.org/Doi-song/tin-buon/ngo-vinh-long-1944-2022

Calvin Thai

Independent

From: Marc Gilbert <mgilbert@hpu.edu>

Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2022 10:28 PM

To: David Biggs <biggsbiggs@gmail.com>; vsg@uw.edu

Subject: Re: [Vsg] Prof. Ngo Vinh Long

Ngo Vinh Long was a model for me in my work. His voice and the quality of his research played a vital role in the evolution of post-war historiography. 

From: Cau Thai <cvthai75@gmail.com> 

Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2022 5:46 PM

To: vsg@uw.edu

Subject: [Vsg] Ngô Vĩnh Long (1944-2022)

Dear List,

Historian Ngô Vĩnh Long passed away the morning of 10/12/22, in Maine, USA, after a long illness.

https://www.diendan.org/Doi-song/tin-buon/ngo-vinh-long-1944-2022

Calvin Thai

Independent

On Wed, Oct 12, 2022 at 5:51 PM David Biggs <biggsbiggs@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Colleagues-

Many of you may know Professor Ngo Vinh Long, a stalwart member of VSG, a student activist who in the early 70s led anti-warprotests and an historian who wrote vividly about rural life under colonial rule.

I share the sad news that he passed yesterday, age 78. BBC Tieng Viet has this obituary: 

https://www.bbc.com/vietnamese/articles/cmm515grqyeo [bbc.com]

Best,

David Biggs

--

David Biggs

Professor of History

Department of History, UC Riverside

900 University Avenue

Riverside CA 92521

USA

pronouns: he/him/his

http://davidbiggs.net [davidbiggs.net]