April 19, 2012
Panel honors landmark publications in Vietnamese 1xbet online games login Studies
2011 was a landmark year for Vietnamese American Studies. The first literary anthology to offer a comprehensive collection of Vietnamese American writings in English was published by Kansas State 1xbet online games login associate professor Michele Janette, and the first full-length book of literary criticism was published by San Francisco State 1xbet online games login associate professor Isabelle Thuy Pelaud. The Association of Asian American Studies acknowledged these accomplishments in a panel where Janette and Pelaud discussed their volumes as interventions in the way Vietnam is understood in America.
For both Janette and Pelaud, Vietnam is too often simply equated with the war that was fought there 35 years ago. The two literary scholars share a commitment to broaden this conception. Janette sees her anthology, titled "My Viet" – published by the 1xbet online games login of Hawaii Press in 2011 – as a way for readers to discover the wide variety of Vietnamese American voices who have been publishing in English since 1962 on a wide variety of topics, from essays the appeal of Ho Chi Minh to plays that rewrite Shakespeare's Hamlet as a zombie rock-n-roll musical.
Pelaud wants her literary analyses in "This is All I Choose to Tell" – Temple 1xbet online games login Press in 2011 – to help students find avenues into appreciation of this literature, as well as to understand the cultural contexts in which it has been produced.
Janette and Pelaud were joined on the panel by novelist Lan Cao, who authored the first Vietamese 1xbet online games login novel published by a major press, "Monkey Bridge" by Penguin, 1997. This novel was excerpted in Janette's anthology and analyzed in Pelaud's book. Cao described her motives for writing "Monkey Bridge" andoffered a preview of her next novel, about a Vietnamese 1xbet online games login veteran of the Vietnam War. Cao's next book is eagerly awaited as an upcoming new landmark in Vietnamese 1xbet online games login literature.