Looking Back on the Vietnam War: Twenty-first-Century Perspectives

Published by Rutgers University Press 2016

Looking Back on the Vietnam War

Twenty-first-Century Perspectives

Edited by: Brenda M. Boyle and Jeehyun Lim
With contributions by: Brenda M. Boyle , Jeehyun Lim , Yen Le Espiritu , Quan Tue Tran , Viet Thanh Nguyen , Lan Duong , Vinh Nguyen , Robert Mason , Leonie Jones , Heonik Kwon , Diane Niblack Fox and Cathy J. Schlund-Vials

In the series War Culture

https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813579962

Overview
Contents

About this book

More than forty years have passed since the official end of the Vietnam War, yet the war’s legacies endure. Its history and iconography still provide fodder for film and fiction, communities of war refugees have spawned a wide Vietnamese diaspora, and the United States military remains embroiled in unwinnable wars with eerie echoes of Vietnam.

Looking Back on the Vietnam War brings together scholars from a broad variety of disciplines, who offer fresh insights on the war’s psychological, economic, artistic, political, and environmental impacts. Each essay examines a different facet of the war, from its representation in Marvel comic books to the experiences of Vietnamese soldiers exposed to Agent Orange. By putting these pieces together, the contributors assemble an expansive yet nuanced composite portrait of the war and its global legacies.

Though they come from diverse scholarly backgrounds, ranging from anthropology to film studies, the contributors are united in their commitment to original research. Whether exploring rare archives or engaging in extensive interviews, they voice perspectives that have been excluded from standard historical accounts. Looking Back on the Vietnam War thus embarks on an interdisciplinary and international investigation to discover what we remember about the war, how we remember it, and why.

Author / Editor information

BRENDA M. BOYLE is an associate professor of English at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. She was a military intelligence officer in West Germany during the Cold War, and she is the author and editor of several books including Themes in Contemporary American Fiction: The Vietnam War.

JEEHYUN LIM is an assistant professor of English at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. She is the author of the forthcoming book Bilingual Brokers: Race, Capital, and the Cultural Politics of Bilingualism.

Reviews

"A collection of studies on the way the war is being remembered and commemorated … The diasporic theme is a welcome counterbalance to the US-centered canon that obscures the presence of the Vietnamese people in their own struggle for independence and all but elides them in studies of the postwar years ... Recommended."

— Choice

"This superb volume brings together a remarkable group of scholars whose attention to disaporic sensibilities, war memory, and contrapuntal narratives fundamentally remakes our understanding of the Vietnam War's cultural politics."

— Mark Philip Bradley, The University of Chicago

"Looking Back on the Vietnam War is haunting in its unflinching critique and intervention to denaturalize warfare and disentangle its afterlife. It is most sublime in rupturing once conventional narratives."

— Linda Trinh Vo, University of California, Irvine

"We're just now barely getting a grip on the myriad aftermaths of the Vietnam War. I enthusiastically urge anyone interested in wars or 'post-wars' to read this fine book--slowly."

— Cynthia Enloe, author of Globalization and Militarism, updated edition

"It is a crucial and timely moment to revisit the meanings of the Vietnam War. This book is a hugely valuable reassessment of the war's legacies and cultural impact."

— Marita Sturken, author of Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
CHRONOLOGY Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
NOTE ON THE TEXT Publicly Available Download PDF	xv
Introduction: Looking Back on the Vietnam War Brenda M. Boyle and Jeehyun Lim Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Vietnamese Refugees and Internet Memorials: When Does War End and Who Gets to Decide? Yên Lê Espiritu Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	18
2. Broken, but Not Forsaken: Disabled South Vietnamese Veterans in Vietnam and the Vietnamese Diaspora Quan Tue Tran Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	34
3. What Is Vietnamese American Literature? Viet Thanh Nguyen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	50
4. Viêt Nam and the Diaspora: Absence, Presence, and the Archive Lan Duong Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	64
5. Liberal Humanitarianism and Post–Cold War Cultural Politics: The Case of Le Ly Hayslip Jeehyun Lim Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
6. Ann Hui’s Boat People: Documenting Vietnamese Refugees in Hong Kong Vinh Nguyen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	94
7. “The Deep Black Hole”: Vietnam in the Memories of Australian Veterans and Refugees Robert Mason and Leonie Jones Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	110
8. Missing Bodies and Homecoming Spirits Heonik Kwon Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	126
9. Agent Orange: Toxic Chemical, Narrative of Suffering, Metaphor for War Diane Niblack Fox Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	140
10. Re-seeing Cambodia and Recollecting The ’Nam: A Vertiginous Critique of the Military Sublime Cathy J. Schlund-Vials Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	156
11. Naturalizing War: The Stories We Tell about the Vietnam War Brenda M. Boyle Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
APPENDIX A: ARCHIVES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
APPENDIX B: PUBLICATIONS SINCE 2000 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203

Language: English
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 224
Illustrations
- Other: 6 photographs

eBook

Published: June 17, 2016
ISBN: 9780813579962