Vietnam
The New Vietnam: Transformations in Historical Memory and Cultural Identity
June 4-15, 2009 Please note new dates.
Itinerary
This 12-day seminar begins in Ho Chi Minh City, ends in Hanoi and includes Hoi An, Hue, Da Nang, and Quang Ngai (the province in which My Lai is located). Click here to see the Summer 2009 Seminar itinerary.
Seminar Fee
CIEE Member $2,700 Non-Member $2,900
Academic Content (please note this is tentative and subject to change)
Lectures
- Brief History of Vietnam
- Introduction to the Vietnamese Language and Culture
- An Overview of Vietnam’s Economic Development since the Doi Moi (Renovation) Policy
- Challenges and Opportunities for Local Enterprises in the WTO Context
- Global Climate Change and Managing the Threat to Vietnam’s Ecology and Economy
- New perspectives on the art and culture of the ancient Champa kingdom
- Foreign Language Education in Vietnam and its Role in International Relations and Business
- Urbanization and Development Issues in Contemporary Vietnam
- New Historiography of the Indochina Wars in Vietnam and Abroad: The Impact of Vietnamese Sources
- New Ways in Which Vietnamese are Looking at Their Nation’s Past and The Work of Vietnam’s National Institute of History in the Twenty-First Century
Co-curricular Site Visits & Field Trips
- Ho Chi Minh City tour, including Reunification Palace and the National Museum of History
- Company visit to a lacquerware factory
- Visit to the Nguyen Dynasty Imperial Citadel and Royal Tombs
- Walking tour of the Old Streets of Hoi An
- Cham Art Museum
- Cham Hindu sanctuary at My Son
- My Lai massacre site
- City tour of Hanoi, including One Pillar Pagoda, Ngoc Son temple, and the Hanoi Stock Exchange
- Ho Chi Minh Museum / Ho Chi Minh mausoleum complex
Rationale
Vietnam’s accession as the 150th member of the World Trade Organization in January 2007 is the latest milestone in the nation’s twenty-year effort at doi moi, or economic renovation, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. This seminar will explore how Vietnam’s policies of global economic integration and capitalist development are transforming its people’s sense of their national past as well as their personal and collective plans for the future. More broadly we will be address the increasingly complicated roles culture, identity, and national history play in social development and Vietnam’s engagement with the international community.
The seminar will begin in Saigon, former capital of the Republic of Vietnam, travel through Hue, Hoi An, Da Nang and Quang Ngai province to conclude in the modern capital of Hanoi. Along the way, participants will have the opportunity to see the diverse ways in which those who lived through the Vietnam War as well as the booming postwar generation now reflect on the conflict; learn how international investment is shaping education and professional aspirations; study the obstacles and opportunities encountered by the Vietnamese people as they take a larger role in the rapidly globalizing economy seen through the lens of their unique historical experience and cultural memory; and explore the prospects and challenges for Vietnam’s continued economic development in the context of recessionary pressures in the West and rapid inflation among neighboring countries.
The seminar promises to be a timely investigation of critical issues in both the East and West, with useful opportunities for building collegial relationships with Vietnamese scholars in business studies and the social sciences.
Host Institution
Vietnam National University. The seminar includes faculty participants from the Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City along with faculty of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences in both Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.
Seminar Leadership
Martin Loicano (PhD Southeast Asian History, Cornell 2008) is Assistant Professor of Asian History with a specialty in 19th and 20th century Vietnamese and Chinese History. He teaches courses in World and Asian history along with upper level courses in Southeast and East Asian History and historical methodology. His past grants include the Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Award and the U.S. Army Center of Military History Dissertation Fellowship. He is the author of articles in the Journal of Vietnamese Studies, The Cultural History of the Vietnam War and the ABC-Clio Encyclopedia of World History among others. His current research manuscript is on the military, political and intellectual history of the Republic of Viet Nam from 1967-1975.