Looking Back on the Vietnam War
Twenty-first-Century Perspectives
Brenda M. Boyle (Edited by), Jeehyun Lim (Edited by), Brenda M. Boyle (Contributions by), Jeehyun Lim (Contributions by), Yen Le Espiritu (Contributions by), Quan Tue Tran (Contributions by), Viet Thanh Nguyen (Contributions by), Lan Duong (Contributions by), Vinh Nguyen (Contributions by), Robert Mason (Contributions by), Leonie Jones (Contributions by), Heonik Kwon (Contributions by), Diane Niblack Fox (Contributions by), Cathy J. Schlund-Vials (Contributions by)
9780813579931
Paperback / softback, published 17 June 2016
224 pages, 6 photographs
22.9 x 15.2 x 0.8 cm, 0.324 kg
"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) "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) "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) "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)
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.
Chronology
Note on the Text
Introduction: Looking Back at the Vietnam War
Brenda M. Boyle and Jeehyun Lim
Chapter 1: Vietnamese Refugees and Internet Memorials: When Does War End and Who Gets to Decide?
Y?n LÊ
Espiritu
Chapter 2: Broken, but Not Forsaken: Disabled South Vietnamese Veterans in Vietnam and the Vietnamese Diaspora
Quan Tue Tran
Chapter 3: What Is Vietnamese American Literature?
Viet Thanh Nguyen
Chapter 4: Vi?t Nam and the Diaspora: Absence, Presence, and the Archive
Lan Duong
Chapter 5: Liberal Humanitarianism and Post–
Cold War Cultural Politics: The Case of Le Ly Hayslip
Jeehyun Lim
Chapter 6: Ann Hui’
s Boat People: Documenting Vietnamese Refugees in Hong Kong
Vinh Nguyen
Chapter 7: “
The Deep Black Hole”
: Vietnam in the Memories of Australian Veterans and Refugees
Robert Mason and Leonie Jones
Chapter 8: Missing Bodies and Homecoming Spirits
Heonik Kwon
Chapter 9: Agent Orange: Toxic Chemical, Narrative of Suffering, Metaphor for War
Diane Niblack Fox
Chapter 10: Re-Seeing Cambodia and Recollecting The ’
Nam: A Vertiginous Critique of the Military Sublime
Cathy J. Schlund-Vials
Chapter 11: Naturalizing War: The Stories We Tell about the Vietnam War
Brenda M. Boyle
Appendix A: Archives
Appendix B: Publications since 2000
Notes on Contributors
Index
