Viet Nam: Borderless Histories

Preface

TITLE vii Preface This volume has been made possible by a new generation of ViӾt Nam scholars, much richer in both numbers and diversity than their predecessors. The idea for a conference to bring together international ViӾt Nam scholars grew out of one held at the University of Pennsylvania in April 2000: “Moving beyond the War: New Directions in the Study of ViӾt Nam.” The Department of History and the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and in particular , then Chair Lynn Lees, provided the support necessary to hold the event. At that conference, we both recognized the excitement that this inquiry brought and decided to provide a more directed forum to continue this dialog. A new Center for Southeast Asian Studies at UCLA seemed a fitting place for many scholars to reconvene. “ViӾt Nam: Beyond the Frontiers,” held in May 2001, tested the limits of the possible, with a younger generation of scholars engaging in dialog with the pillars of the field. We are grateful to those who contributed thoughtful papers to the conference program, including Jessica Breiteneicher, Micheline Lessard, Ngô /Ԡc ThԂnh, NguyӼn ThԂ HiӸn, NguyӼn Xuân Thu, Panivong Norindr, Douglas Padgett, Melissa Pashigian, Minh Hoa Ta, Angie Ngoc Tran, Caroline Valverde, and John Wills. Our thanks go also to the scholars who served as discussants at the conference: CчԔng TԨ NguyӼn, Thu-Hчхng NguyӼn-Võ, Linda Võ, John Whitmore , and Peter Zinoman. At UCLA the staff of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, including David Deltesta (then acting codirector), Jennifer Winther, Elmer Almer, and Paul Nguyen and Thao Nguyen (conference assistants) made the logistical planning all the easier. Christine Cao, Catherine Greene-Husbands, and Hueybin Teng’s assistance ensured that the conference ran smoothly. viii Preface The conference was made possible through the generous funding of the following UCLA programs and departments: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Comparative and Interdisciplinary Research on Asia (CIRA) Program, the Department of History, and the International and Area Studies Program (ISOP). Gary Larsen, through the Asia Society of Southern California and Cathay Pacific, arranged the air travel for participants from ViӾt Nam. During the conference we realized that the advances in historical analysis were particularly important and that Vietnamese history would be the subject of this book. In the efforts that followed, we acquired further debts, notably to our contributors, who wrote and rewrote to ever higher levels and waited patiently for the outcome. We also thank two anonymous readers for the Center of Southeast Asian Studies Publications who provided insightful comments on our manuscript and revisions. In the final editing task we were much assisted by Tan Ying Ying, Kamalini Ramdas, and Connie Teo Eng Seng from the Asia Research Institute in Singapore. Toronto and Singapore, 2005 ...