Nguyễn Thị Hải (University of Paris-Diderot)

Colleagues,

I would like to announce that Nguyễn Thị Hải successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation (thèse de doctorat) at the University of Paris-Diderot last November. As a member of the jury, I appreciated the breadth, significance, and path-breaking nature of Nguyễn Thị Hải's work as well as her spirited responses to the our questions. It was an excellent defense.

Based on an impressive array of sources, Nguyễn Thị Hải examines the relationships between Vietnamese imperial authorities and Tai (Tày and Nùng) power holders in the northern borderlands province of Cao Bằng. Beyond its significance for Vietnamese studies, her dissertation should interest scholars in the more general fields of Southeast Asian studies and East Asian studies as well as historians of comparative empires.

Beginning with a detailed description of the environment and populations of Cao Bằng, Nguyễn Thị Hải narrates the networks that connected local power and imperial authority before, during, and after the radical administrative changes of the early nineteenth century. Her study of the local dynamics of the Minh Mạng reforms, which created the "province" (tỉnh, 省) as an administrative unit, expands our understanding not only of Cao Bằng but also of the often surprising local applications of centrally mandated political change. The principal lineages of Cao Bằng, an area historically dominated by Tai groups, are presented with illuminating detail. In the French colonial period, Chinese and Tai groups engaged with colonial authority in what became a territoire militaire, producing a variety of often conflicting relationships that lasted into the twentieth century. Nguyễn Thị Hải concludes her study with a close analysis of an area known as "Bảo Lạc," the former base of Nông Văn Vân's 1830s rebellion.

Combining a trenchant examination of archival sources, private documents, local collections, published material, as well as her own field notes and photography, Nguyễn Thị Hải has produces what should become the standard work on Cao Bằng and, under the guidance of Emmanuel Poisson, a model for future scholarship on nineteenth century Vietnam. Her bibliography includes works in French, Vietnamese, Classical Chinese, and English as well as handwritten family histories from the private archive of Nông Ích Giảng among others.

Eric Guerassimoff, Emmanuel Poisson (directeur), Alain Forest (co-directeur), Philippe Papin (pré-rapporteur), Andrew Hardy (pré-rapporteur), Philippe Le Failler and I were the jury for her defense (soutenence), which was public and very well-attended on the afternoon of November 19.

Please join me in congratulating Nguyễn Thị Hải (cc'ed) on this impressive achievement!

best,

Bradley

Bradley Camp Davis

Eastern Connecticut State University