Trần Trọng Dương on the Utility of the Hùng Kings
The video below is a continuation of our conversation with TS Trần Trọng Dương after the Engaging With Vietnam conference last summer about the utility of history (tính hữu dụng…
Kim Định and History that “Is”
The topic of the importance (or non-importance) of South Vietnamese philosopher Lương Kim Định has come up again and this has forced me to think more about this issue. I…
Lý Văn Phức’s Barbarian Guesthouse Slam
In 1831 the Nguyễn Dynasty official, Lý Văn Phức, escorted some stranded Chinese sailors back to Fujian province.
When he arrived there, the guesthouse where he was supposed to stay had a sign over it which indicated that it was for “Barbarians.”
Good, Bold and Bad Historical Scholarship
I guess this is self-promotion. . . but there is an interview with Le Minh Khai that the journal Da Màu has published which covers several issues that this blog…
Vietnamese History – Island Style
I changed my mind. I was going to “digitize” a class that I teach on modern Southeast Asian History, but I’ve decided not to do that yet. Instead, given that…
The (Unacknowledged) Decline of Asian Studies
For the past decade or more I’ve observed a clear decline in interest on the part of students at my university in “Asian Studies” (by which I mean here broadly…
Imagining a Eurasian History of Southeast Asia
A few years ago someone I met in Kuching kindly gave me a cookbook that had just been published by the Sarawak Eurasian Association called Legacy Cookbook. This cookbook highlighted…