Michael G . Vann
California State University, Sacramento, History, Faculty Member
- Southeast Asian Studies, France, Colonialism, Colonialism and Imperialism, Vietnamese History, French History, and 17 moreHanoi, Political Violence and Terrorism, French Colonial History, French colonial Indochina, Indonesia, Bubonic Plague, Cholera, Rats and mice, Genocide Studies, Service Learning in Higher Education, Genocide, Compatative History, Cold War history, Cold War and Culture, Art and Aesthetics of the Cold War, Film History, and Cinemaedit
- Historian of imperialism and the Cold War in Southeast Asia and beyond.edit
This book reproduces and analyzes a collection of crucial primary documents from the early Twentieth-Century. These simple yet rich visual sources provide us with a clever insight into the nature of the colonial order of things. Joyeux... more
This book reproduces and analyzes a collection of crucial primary documents from the early Twentieth-Century. These simple yet rich visual sources provide us with a clever insight into the nature of the colonial order of things. Joyeux was a French artist who served in the colonial service as an art teacher and school administrator. Living primarily in and around Saigon, he captured many aspects of daily life in the French colony in a series of humorous, critical, and, at times, somber cartoons. Taking on individuals such as corrupt civil servants, decadent plantation owners, and scheming Vietnamese housekeepers, his pen and ink drawings spared few. Despite this, he never lost his humanity and empathy. As a member of the community he studied, Joyeux offers the reader an informed analysis of French colonial society from the inside. In addition to translating the cartoon captions, Vann and Montague provide an introductory essay and explications of each image.
https://www.worldcat.org/title/colonial-good-life-a-commentary-on-andre-joyeuxs-vision-of-french-indochina/oclc/263095177
https://www.worldcat.org/title/colonial-good-life-a-commentary-on-andre-joyeuxs-vision-of-french-indochina/oclc/263095177
Research Interests: Cultural History, Cultural Studies, Southeast Asian Studies, French History, Race and Racism, and 12 moreRace and Ethnicity, Colonialism, Vietnamese History, French colonialism, French colonial Indochina, Vietnam, Southeast Asian history, Comics and Graphic Novels, Imperialism, Cartoons, Vietnamese studies, and French Colonial Empire
The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam tells the darkly humorous story of the French colonial state's failed efforts to impose its vision of modernity upon the colonial city of Hanoi,... more
The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam tells the darkly humorous story of the French colonial state's failed efforts to impose its vision of modernity upon the colonial city of Hanoi, Vietnam.
Part of the Graphic Histories series, this book offers a case study in the history of imperialism, highlighting the racialized economic inequalities of empire, colonization as a form of modernization, and industrial capitalism's creation of a radical power differential between "the West and the rest." On a deeper level, The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt examines the contradictions unique to the French Third Republic's colonial "civilizing mission," the development of Vietnamese resistance to French rule, and the history of disease. Featuring forty-nine primary sources--many available in English for the first time--and three full-color maps, The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt illustrates the ironic and tragic ways in which modernization projects can have unintended consequences.
ISBN: 9780190602697
https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/the-great-hanoi-rat-hunt-9780190602697?cc=us&lang=en&
Part of the Graphic Histories series, this book offers a case study in the history of imperialism, highlighting the racialized economic inequalities of empire, colonization as a form of modernization, and industrial capitalism's creation of a radical power differential between "the West and the rest." On a deeper level, The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt examines the contradictions unique to the French Third Republic's colonial "civilizing mission," the development of Vietnamese resistance to French rule, and the history of disease. Featuring forty-nine primary sources--many available in English for the first time--and three full-color maps, The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt illustrates the ironic and tragic ways in which modernization projects can have unintended consequences.
ISBN: 9780190602697
https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/the-great-hanoi-rat-hunt-9780190602697?cc=us&lang=en&
Research Interests: Infectious disease epidemiology, French History, Urban History, Environmental History, Vietnamese History, and 15 moreInvasive species ecology, History of Plague, Modernity, Urban Ecology, French colonialism, French colonial Indochina, History Of Disease, Vietnam, Urban Environmental History, Comics and Graphic Novels, Imperialism, French Colonial History, Vietnamese studies, Hanoi, and Colonialism and Imperialism
On 26 December 2018, an Indonesian National Army (TNI) unit raided a book vendor in Kediri, East Java. They seized a handful of titles – all history books – about the nation’s turbulent politics in the 1960s. The army claimed the books... more
On 26 December 2018, an Indonesian National Army (TNI) unit raided a book vendor in Kediri, East Java. They seized a handful of titles – all history books – about the nation’s turbulent politics in the 1960s. The army claimed the books were illegal as they promoted Marxism. Similar events in Padang, West Sumatra, and Tarakan, North Kalimantan (Borneo) followed. These raids raised many concerns around the archipelago, especially as Indonesia is headed towards a presidential election this spring. It is clear that Red-baiting and paranoia over the legacy of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and its bloody destruction will remain potent factors in national politics.
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[ Abstract ] This article is a subsection of a comparative analysis of depictions of violence in Jakarta's Museum of the Indonesian Communist Party's Treachery, Ho Chi Minh City's War Remnants Museum, and Phnom Penh's Tuol Sleng Genocide... more
[ Abstract ] This article is a subsection of a comparative analysis of depictions of violence in Jakarta's Museum of the Indonesian Communist Party's Treachery, Ho Chi Minh City's War Remnants Museum, and Phnom Penh's Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. In comparing these public history sites, I analyze how memories of mass violence were central to state formation in both Suharto's anti-Communist New Order (1966-1998), the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (1976-present), and Cambodia since the collapse of Democratic Kampuchea (1979-present). While this comparison points out specific distinctions about the role of the military, the nature of revolution, and conceptions of gender, it argues for a central similarity in the use of a mythology of victimization in building these post-conflict nation-states. This article focuses on my gendered analysis of the use of images of women and children in each museum. Depending on context and political purpose, these museums cast women as tragic victim, revolutionary heroine, or threat to the social order. My analysis of gender places stereotypical images of violence against women (the trope of women and children as the * Professor, California State University, USA. mikevann@csus.edu
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Southeast Asian Studies, Museum Studies, Violence, Indonesian History, and 10 moreGender, Vietnamese History, Comparative genocide, Art and Aesthetics of the Cold War, Cambodian History, Southeast Asian history, Cold War history, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and Political Violence in Cambodia & the Khmer Rouge
Based on an analysis of sexually explicit cartoons from a Hanoi newspaper, this essay is a gendered reading of the colonial encounter in French Indochina. Using previously untapped sources from the pre-1954 collection in Vietnam's... more
Based on an analysis of sexually explicit cartoons from a Hanoi newspaper, this essay is a gendered reading of the colonial encounter in French Indochina. Using previously untapped sources from the pre-1954 collection in Vietnam's National Library, I engage critical theories of masculinity and whiteness to create a thick description of life in the colonial city. From a feminist perspective, I argue that imperialism's racial, gender, and class hierarchies combined with the Third Republic's paternalism and misogyny to give French men unprecedented power over their Asian subjects, especially Vietnamese women, be they prostitutes, concubines, or victims of sexual assault. This intersectionality created an openly predatory sexual culture in the overwhelmingly male white community of colonizers. These cartoons show specific locations in Hanoi and greater colonial Asia, providing insight into the lived experience of the colonial city and information to literally map these white men's sexual desires in the city.
Research Interests: French History, Masculinity Studies, Gender and Sexuality, History of Sexuality, World History, and 13 moreColonialism, Vietnamese History, 19th century France, Whiteness Studies, French colonialism, 20th century France, Masculinities, Critical Race Theory and Whiteness theory, History of Prostitution, France, Critical Whiteness Studies, Imperialism, and Hanoi
A history of Governor General of Indochina Paul Doumer's transformation of Hanoi between 1897 and 1902. Pays attention to the ways in which colonial whiteness and white supremacy were inscribed into the colonial city.
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This essay discusses strategies for teaching the history of genocide in Southeast Asia.
Research Interests: Southeast Asian Studies, Indonesian History, Genocide Studies, Indonesian Studies, World History, and 11 moreSoutheast Asia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Cambodian History, Southeast Asian history, Noam Chomsky, East Timor, Genocide, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Khmer Rouge, and Political Violence in Cambodia & the Khmer Rouge
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Global memories of 1968 often invoke images of determined but joyful popular uprisings, such as students taking to the streets in Paris and Dubček’s “socialism with a human face” in Prague. From Mexico City to Beijing, youth revolt was in... more
Global memories of 1968 often invoke images of determined but joyful popular uprisings, such as students taking to the streets in Paris and Dubček’s “socialism with a human face” in Prague. From Mexico City to Beijing, youth revolt was in the air. We world historians know that this rebellious, even revolutionary, enthusiasm would be crushed by year’s end. In Jakarta one
of the world’s most reactionary regimes was solidifying its power. On March 27, 1968, General Suharto was sworn in as the nation’s second President by a parliament firmly under his control. This ceremony institutionalized the next three decades of his rule, a brutal and corrupt military dictatorship known as the New Order. Suharto’s rise to power included the mass murder of at least 500,000 individuals for alleged ties to the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and the arrest, torture, and incarceration of roughly 1,000,000 political prisoners. In the summer of 1968, he commanded Operation Trisula, a final massacre of some two thousand alleged PKI members in South Blitar, East Java. Many of the Indonesian victims and prisoners once shared the rebellious enthusiasm of the Parisian soixante-huitards. For a number of reasons, but most importantly because the killers created the new state system, the perpetrators of one of the worst crimes of the twentieth century have never been held accountable. Furthermore, Suharto and his domestic and international allies made a concerted effort to conceal, confuse, and otherwise obfuscate the events of 1965-1968.1 For some five decades this significant world historical event has been shrouded in mystery. Only recently have scholars, filmmakers, and artists successfully shone light on this dark corner of the past.
of the world’s most reactionary regimes was solidifying its power. On March 27, 1968, General Suharto was sworn in as the nation’s second President by a parliament firmly under his control. This ceremony institutionalized the next three decades of his rule, a brutal and corrupt military dictatorship known as the New Order. Suharto’s rise to power included the mass murder of at least 500,000 individuals for alleged ties to the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and the arrest, torture, and incarceration of roughly 1,000,000 political prisoners. In the summer of 1968, he commanded Operation Trisula, a final massacre of some two thousand alleged PKI members in South Blitar, East Java. Many of the Indonesian victims and prisoners once shared the rebellious enthusiasm of the Parisian soixante-huitards. For a number of reasons, but most importantly because the killers created the new state system, the perpetrators of one of the worst crimes of the twentieth century have never been held accountable. Furthermore, Suharto and his domestic and international allies made a concerted effort to conceal, confuse, and otherwise obfuscate the events of 1965-1968.1 For some five decades this significant world historical event has been shrouded in mystery. Only recently have scholars, filmmakers, and artists successfully shone light on this dark corner of the past.
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This essay explores how Malacca became a trade emporium, connecting Southeast Asia to the wider world system.
Research Interests: Southeast Asian Studies, World Systems Analysis, International Trade, Colonialism, Southeast Asia, and 11 moreIslamic Studies, Islam in the Southeast Asia, British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), History of the Portuguese Empire, Chinese history (History), Southeast Asian history, Imperialism, Dutch East India Company, Martime history, Malacca past history, and Admiral Zheng He
The success of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel "The Sympathizer" has brought attention to Vietnamese diasporic literature. In his wide-ranging academic work "Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War," Nguyen... more
The success of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel
"The Sympathizer" has brought attention to Vietnamese diasporic literature. In his wide-ranging academic work "Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the
Memory of War," Nguyen discusses the variety of literary genres explored
by Vietnamese refugees, including graphic memoirs. Not to be confused
with graphic novels, which are works of fiction, the genre of graphic memoir
uses the medium of cartoons to situate personal stories within the context of larger historical processes.Whether we use the adjective graphic, illustrated, or comic, this subgenre of diasporic Vietnamese family histories is surprisingly robust. Taken as a whole, they represent an important
cultural development in the literature and art of exile. With slowly uncovered secrets, hidden family members, and unspoken trauma, these three authors use gothic elements to tell their refugee family histories.
"The Sympathizer" has brought attention to Vietnamese diasporic literature. In his wide-ranging academic work "Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the
Memory of War," Nguyen discusses the variety of literary genres explored
by Vietnamese refugees, including graphic memoirs. Not to be confused
with graphic novels, which are works of fiction, the genre of graphic memoir
uses the medium of cartoons to situate personal stories within the context of larger historical processes.Whether we use the adjective graphic, illustrated, or comic, this subgenre of diasporic Vietnamese family histories is surprisingly robust. Taken as a whole, they represent an important
cultural development in the literature and art of exile. With slowly uncovered secrets, hidden family members, and unspoken trauma, these three authors use gothic elements to tell their refugee family histories.
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Visitors to Southeast Asia have the opportunity to see three distinct Cold War narratives. Museum exhibits in Ho Chi Minh City, Phnom Penh, and Jakarta inform the public about specific acts of violence and murder during the ideological... more
Visitors to Southeast Asia have the opportunity to see three distinct Cold War narratives. Museum exhibits in Ho Chi Minh City, Phnom Penh, and Jakarta inform the public about specific acts of violence and murder during the ideological struggles of 1945 to 1989. Drawing from Paul Ricoeur and Michel-Rolph Trouillot, this chapter considers the ways in which the official voice of the state constructed Cold War narratives of violence and victimization in several Southeast Asian museums, a process of remembering, forgetting, and silencing. While these public history institutions emphasize the violence and tragedy of the Cold War and use similar narrative structures, themes, and formats, their political perspectives are so dramatically different as to create the feeling of parallel realities. Indeed, the Indonesian and Vietnamese museums can be read as ideological mirror images of each other, with the Cambodian sites seemingly above the Cold War political dichotomy. A comparative analysis of Jakarta’s Monument to the Revolutionary Heroes (Monumen Pahlawan Revolusi) complex, Ho Chi Minh City’s War Remnants Museum (Bảo tàng Chứng tích chiến tranh), and Phnom Penh’s Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is the focus of this chapter.
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Southeast Asian Studies, Museum Studies, Violence, Public History, and 12 moreGenocide Studies, History and Memory, Cold War, Political Violence and Terrorism, Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam War, Vietnam, Gender-specific wartime violence/gendercide, Khmer Rouge, Political Violence in Cambodia & the Khmer Rouge, and Indonesian History, 1965 and its aftermath
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This paper discusses the neo-logicist approach to the foundations of mathematics by highlighting an issue that arises from looking at the Bad Company objection from an epistemological perspective. For the most part, our issue is... more
This paper discusses the neo-logicist approach to the foundations of mathematics by highlighting an issue that arises from looking at the Bad Company objection from an epistemological perspective. For the most part, our issue is independent of the details of any resolution of the Bad Company objection and, as we will show, it concerns other foundational approaches in the philosophy
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A micro-history of the 1929 murder of a French labor "recruiter" in colonial Hanoi. Explores violence in the colonial encounter.
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Recent reflections on French urban history in relation to colonial and post-colonial cities in France and the former empire.
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While there is a large body of literature on violence in colonial history, most studies have looked at either the bloodshed of conquest, major revolts, or decolonization. Despite the undeniable importance of such moments in the history of... more
While there is a large body of literature on violence in colonial history, most studies have looked at either the bloodshed of conquest, major revolts, or decolonization. Despite
the undeniable importance of such moments in the history of empire, an over-emphasis on these events creates a punctuated narrative where violence enters the story line, rears
its ugly head, and then retreats. This paper argues that a complete understanding of the colonial encounter requires us to look at the violence in the many days between the arrival of the colonizers’ expeditionary forces and the ! nal achievement of national liberation. By examining the intersection between a rebellious band of pirates, a colonial state bend on revenge, and an opportunistic postcard maker, the portrait that emerges is one of a colonial society where violence was not just commonplace but an essential technique in maintaining the colonial order. Be it in the form of criminal violence that challenged French rule, the institutionalized violence of the state execution, or the symbolic reminders of such violence in the form of cheap postcards for sale in the city streets, acts, images, and memories of colonial violence were omnipresent. Importantly, the colonial state publicized its violence, making its ability to punish known to all. This violence terrorized the conquered native population and reassured the vulnerable white community. It in only in this context that other topics in colonial history such as educational reforms, city planning, and economic development can be understood.
the undeniable importance of such moments in the history of empire, an over-emphasis on these events creates a punctuated narrative where violence enters the story line, rears
its ugly head, and then retreats. This paper argues that a complete understanding of the colonial encounter requires us to look at the violence in the many days between the arrival of the colonizers’ expeditionary forces and the ! nal achievement of national liberation. By examining the intersection between a rebellious band of pirates, a colonial state bend on revenge, and an opportunistic postcard maker, the portrait that emerges is one of a colonial society where violence was not just commonplace but an essential technique in maintaining the colonial order. Be it in the form of criminal violence that challenged French rule, the institutionalized violence of the state execution, or the symbolic reminders of such violence in the form of cheap postcards for sale in the city streets, acts, images, and memories of colonial violence were omnipresent. Importantly, the colonial state publicized its violence, making its ability to punish known to all. This violence terrorized the conquered native population and reassured the vulnerable white community. It in only in this context that other topics in colonial history such as educational reforms, city planning, and economic development can be understood.
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This is an analysis of the Indonesia film "Penumpasan Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI" (“Crushing the Treachery of the Indonesian Communist Party and the September 30 Movement"). Released as a 271-minute feature film in 1984 and later available in... more
This is an analysis of the Indonesia film "Penumpasan Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI" (“Crushing the Treachery of the Indonesian Communist Party and the September 30 Movement"). Released as a 271-minute feature film in 1984 and later available in a shorter 217-minute home video, Indonesians often refer it to as simply "G30S/PKI". That this shorthand is also the widely accepted term for the failed September 30, 1965 coup d’état, which was used as a pretext for the destruction of the Indonesian Community Party (PKI) and a wide range of progressive groups and individuals labeled “communist,” underlines the significance of the film. Repeatedly seen by almost everyone in Indonesia for some 15 years, G30S/PKI was central to a state-directed campaign that created the current conventional knowledge of these historical events. I argue that the film’s impact was so profound that it became Indonesia’s collective memory, making it one of the most successful propaganda films of all time. Furthermore, G30S/PKI’s lurid violence and sexuality and disturbing messages further traumatized the nation during President Suharto’s genocidal New Order (Orde Baru, 1966–98). As it was forced upon a generation of children, the legacy of the film continues into the era of democratic reform (Reformasi or “Reformation,” 1998–present; although some wags now call the period starting in 2018 “Regrasi” or “Regression”). Recently, a new generation of Indonesian historians have coined the term “Lubang Buaya Narrative” for this state-imposed historical memory (Djakababa 2009; Sullivan 2019). Named for the site of the most disturbing and unforgettable scene from "Penumpasan Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI", their terminology recognizes the film’s importance in Indonesia decades after the Cold War.
"Penumpasan Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI" should be considered
as one of the most successful propaganda films of the twentieth century. Its success is due to the mandatory television screenings every September 30, the anniversary of the failed coup, until the fall of Suharto. Furthermore, teachers would march their students to local theaters where the film was being screened. Because it was so widely viewed and because the regime violently repressed counternarratives, the film shaped Indonesian mass culture during the Cold War. Unlike other Cold War-era films that we can read as the product of a dominant cultural attitude, G30S/PKI actually created that attitude or perspective. The film created the nation’s collective memory.
"Penumpasan Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI" should be considered
as one of the most successful propaganda films of the twentieth century. Its success is due to the mandatory television screenings every September 30, the anniversary of the failed coup, until the fall of Suharto. Furthermore, teachers would march their students to local theaters where the film was being screened. Because it was so widely viewed and because the regime violently repressed counternarratives, the film shaped Indonesian mass culture during the Cold War. Unlike other Cold War-era films that we can read as the product of a dominant cultural attitude, G30S/PKI actually created that attitude or perspective. The film created the nation’s collective memory.
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Visual propaganda, Indonesian Culture, Indonesian History, Gender History, and 15 moreLiterature and cinema, Propaganda, Cold War and Culture, Indonesian Studies, Cold War, Gender, Indonesia, History Of Propaganda, Art and Aesthetics of the Cold War, Cold War history, Indonesian Politics, History of Communism, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Fascist propaganda, and History of Cinema
When Pépé le Moko finally premiered in the United States of America in the spring of 1941, over four years after its release in France, Bosley Crother’s review in The New York Times praised it as “a raw-edged, realistic and utterly frank... more
When Pépé le Moko finally premiered in the United States of America in the spring of 1941, over four years after its release in France, Bosley Crother’s review in The New York Times praised it as “a raw-edged, realistic and utterly frank exposition of a basically evil story.” Crother, then at the start of his nearly three-decade career at the Times, continued:
Don’t get the idea, however, that “Pepe le Moko” is a risqué film. Rather it is the plain-spoken and honestly factual account of a Parisian crook’s exile in the vicious and sordid Casbah of Algiers, that notorious area of corruption and native depravity from which he is eventually drawn to his doom by love for a woman. All the filthiness and vice of the Casbah are impressively shown in the film; there is no question at all about the ruthless wickedness of Pepe, and the woman who finally lures him into the open is obviously the mistress of another man.[1]
Julien Duvivier’s film clearly seduced this critic. This is not surprising as generations of viewers have been taken in by Jean Gabin’s iconic performance in this superbly crafted example of French film noir. From the lighting to the dialog, Pépé le Moko is a cinematic treat. What is noteworthy in this review is the way in which Crother never questions the colonial context. He clearly accepts it as the natural state of affairs that France controls Algiers and the native quarter of the city is a “notorious” and filthy den of “vice,” “corruption,” and “native depravity.” While noting the compromised morals of the two white lead characters, he accepts the film’s presentation of the Casbah at face-value. Written as Europe’s global empires are just about to unravel in spectacular fashion, Crother’s review is a text-book example of Orientalism’s cultural hegemony.[2] Indeed, Pépé le Moko is one of the finest articulations of the ultimate colonial fantasy, the ability of a white man to master a distant land and its exotic people. Yet, even in this dream of empire, colonialism’s contradictions reveal white supremacy’s background anxieties and insecurities.
Don’t get the idea, however, that “Pepe le Moko” is a risqué film. Rather it is the plain-spoken and honestly factual account of a Parisian crook’s exile in the vicious and sordid Casbah of Algiers, that notorious area of corruption and native depravity from which he is eventually drawn to his doom by love for a woman. All the filthiness and vice of the Casbah are impressively shown in the film; there is no question at all about the ruthless wickedness of Pepe, and the woman who finally lures him into the open is obviously the mistress of another man.[1]
Julien Duvivier’s film clearly seduced this critic. This is not surprising as generations of viewers have been taken in by Jean Gabin’s iconic performance in this superbly crafted example of French film noir. From the lighting to the dialog, Pépé le Moko is a cinematic treat. What is noteworthy in this review is the way in which Crother never questions the colonial context. He clearly accepts it as the natural state of affairs that France controls Algiers and the native quarter of the city is a “notorious” and filthy den of “vice,” “corruption,” and “native depravity.” While noting the compromised morals of the two white lead characters, he accepts the film’s presentation of the Casbah at face-value. Written as Europe’s global empires are just about to unravel in spectacular fashion, Crother’s review is a text-book example of Orientalism’s cultural hegemony.[2] Indeed, Pépé le Moko is one of the finest articulations of the ultimate colonial fantasy, the ability of a white man to master a distant land and its exotic people. Yet, even in this dream of empire, colonialism’s contradictions reveal white supremacy’s background anxieties and insecurities.
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A critical study of race and gender in the classic "Hawaii Five-0" television series.
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Television Studies, Gender History, Masculinity Studies, Cold War and Culture, and 14 moreCold War, Gender, Masculinities, American imperialism, Studies On Men And Masculinity, Art and Aesthetics of the Cold War, Television History, Hawaiian Studies, Television, Imperialism, Hawaii, Hawaiian History, Colonialism and Imperialism, and Sinophobia
This article from "The radical History Review" considers the use of film in teaching French colonial Algeria.
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Despite commercial success and receiving the academy award for best Foreign Film, Post-colonial critics such as Panivong Norindr, Nicola Cooper, and Lily Chiu have strongly criticized Régis Wargnier’s 1992 epic Indochine as... more
Despite commercial success and receiving the academy award for best Foreign Film, Post-colonial critics such as Panivong Norindr, Nicola Cooper, and Lily Chiu have strongly criticized Régis Wargnier’s 1992 epic Indochine as neo-colonialist nostalgia. The standard line, drawn from Edward Said’s analysis of representations of “the other,” is that the film romanticizes the French colonial empire, glamorizes the lives of white colonials, and
uses the indigenous Vietnamese and overseas Chinese population as mere props, as racial backdrops that add color to a white man’s fantasy. this review argues against the established academic interpretations of the film.
uses the indigenous Vietnamese and overseas Chinese population as mere props, as racial backdrops that add color to a white man’s fantasy. this review argues against the established academic interpretations of the film.
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SCOTT LADERMAN Empire in Waves A Political History of Surfing UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS 2014 June 19, 2020 Michael G. Vann Since 2020 has been such a horrifying year (and it’s only June!), it would be nice to relax a bit this... more
SCOTT LADERMAN
Empire in Waves
A Political History of Surfing
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS 2014
June 19, 2020 Michael G. Vann
Since 2020 has been such a horrifying year (and it’s only June!), it would be nice to relax a bit this summer and talk about something fun and apolitical like surfing. After all, what’s more chill then hanging at the beach and catching some waves?
But wait a minute! Empire in Waves: A Political History of Surfing (University of California Press, 2014) is about imperialism, white supremacy, Apartheid, Cold War politics in Central America and Southeast Asia, genocide, and the ways in which large corporations commodify and suck the very soul out of vibrant countercultures. Scott Laderman tells us “surfing is not a mindless entertainment, but a cultural force born of empire (at least in its modern phase), reliant on Western power, and invested in neoliberal capitalism.” Whoa, total bummer, dude! Empire in Waves is part of the University of California Press’ “Sports in World History” series and uses surfing as a prism to explore a number of crucial political, economic, and cultural issues.
Scott Laderman is a professor of history at the University of Minnesota, Duluth – home of the best surfing in the upper Midwest.
Empire in Waves
A Political History of Surfing
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS 2014
June 19, 2020 Michael G. Vann
Since 2020 has been such a horrifying year (and it’s only June!), it would be nice to relax a bit this summer and talk about something fun and apolitical like surfing. After all, what’s more chill then hanging at the beach and catching some waves?
But wait a minute! Empire in Waves: A Political History of Surfing (University of California Press, 2014) is about imperialism, white supremacy, Apartheid, Cold War politics in Central America and Southeast Asia, genocide, and the ways in which large corporations commodify and suck the very soul out of vibrant countercultures. Scott Laderman tells us “surfing is not a mindless entertainment, but a cultural force born of empire (at least in its modern phase), reliant on Western power, and invested in neoliberal capitalism.” Whoa, total bummer, dude! Empire in Waves is part of the University of California Press’ “Sports in World History” series and uses surfing as a prism to explore a number of crucial political, economic, and cultural issues.
Scott Laderman is a professor of history at the University of Minnesota, Duluth – home of the best surfing in the upper Midwest.
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KIM A. WAGNER Amritsar 1919: An Empire of Fear and the Making of a Massacre YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 2019 January 15, 2020 Michael G. Vann You’ve probably seen the film Gandhi and you likely think that you know all about the Amritsar... more
KIM A. WAGNER
Amritsar 1919: An Empire of Fear and the Making of a Massacre
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 2019
January 15, 2020 Michael G. Vann
You’ve probably seen the film Gandhi and you likely think that you know all about the Amritsar Massacre of 1919. After all, Richard Attenborough’s 1982 academy award winning film did an incredible job of recreating every detail of Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordering his Gurkha and Sikh troops to open fire on a peaceful crowd listening to a nationalist speech. Right? Well, professor Kim Wagner of the University of London Queen Mary wants to undo the mythology that surrounds this event.
Critiquing both Indian nationalist narratives and Raj nostalgia, Amritsar 1919: An Empire of Fear and the Making of a Massacre (Yale University Press, 2019) puts this act of colonial violence in its proper historical context. Based on meticulous archival research and presented in a lively and engaging style, Wagner argues that this massacre was not an aberration from an otherwise just and well-managed British colony. Rather, the massacre was part of a longer history of violence that includes the suppression of the Thugee, the brutal crushing of the 1857 mutiny, and a series of other violent events. Indeed, Wagner sees British violence as central to the imperial project. The book also explores the afterlife of the massacre, including popular British support for the disgraced Dyer and the uses of the event by the Indian nationalist movement. Considering President Trump’s recent pardoning of a Navy SEAL convicted of war crimes, our discussion of Amritsar 1919 resonates with current events.
Michael G. Vann is a professor of world history at California State University, Sacramento. A specialist in imperialism and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, he is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empires, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam (Oxford, 2018). When he’s not reading or talking about new books with smart people, Mike can be found surfing in Santa Cruz, California.
Amritsar 1919: An Empire of Fear and the Making of a Massacre
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 2019
January 15, 2020 Michael G. Vann
You’ve probably seen the film Gandhi and you likely think that you know all about the Amritsar Massacre of 1919. After all, Richard Attenborough’s 1982 academy award winning film did an incredible job of recreating every detail of Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordering his Gurkha and Sikh troops to open fire on a peaceful crowd listening to a nationalist speech. Right? Well, professor Kim Wagner of the University of London Queen Mary wants to undo the mythology that surrounds this event.
Critiquing both Indian nationalist narratives and Raj nostalgia, Amritsar 1919: An Empire of Fear and the Making of a Massacre (Yale University Press, 2019) puts this act of colonial violence in its proper historical context. Based on meticulous archival research and presented in a lively and engaging style, Wagner argues that this massacre was not an aberration from an otherwise just and well-managed British colony. Rather, the massacre was part of a longer history of violence that includes the suppression of the Thugee, the brutal crushing of the 1857 mutiny, and a series of other violent events. Indeed, Wagner sees British violence as central to the imperial project. The book also explores the afterlife of the massacre, including popular British support for the disgraced Dyer and the uses of the event by the Indian nationalist movement. Considering President Trump’s recent pardoning of a Navy SEAL convicted of war crimes, our discussion of Amritsar 1919 resonates with current events.
Michael G. Vann is a professor of world history at California State University, Sacramento. A specialist in imperialism and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, he is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empires, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam (Oxford, 2018). When he’s not reading or talking about new books with smart people, Mike can be found surfing in Santa Cruz, California.
Research Interests:
DAVID BIGGS Footprints of War Militarized Landscapes in Vietnam UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS 2018 October 31, 2019 Michael G. Vann By now we all know that Vietnam is a country, not a war. But how have decades, and even centuries, of... more
DAVID BIGGS
Footprints of War
Militarized Landscapes in Vietnam
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS 2018
October 31, 2019 Michael G. Vann
By now we all know that Vietnam is a country, not a war. But how have decades, and even centuries, of war impacted the land of this southeast Asian nation? Professor David A. Biggs of the University of California, Riverside, specializes in Vietnamese environmental history. In Footprints of War: Militarized Landscapes of Vietnam (University of Washington Press, 2018) he examines the impacts of warfare in the region around Hue in central Vietnam. Using cutting edge methodology drawn from GIS (graphic information system), aerial photography, and more traditional archival documents, Biggs finds legacies of war in the soil, water, and rain forests.
Starting with 14th-century battles between the Cham states and the invading Viet and continuing through the Ming Dynasty’s occupation in the early 1400s, the Tayson Rebellion (1771-1802) and the French colonial occupation from the 1880s to 1954, Biggs argues for an important pre-history of wars prior to the American War of the 1960s to January, 1973. The book ends with the American military machines “creative destruction” and a discussion of the toxic war remnants that pollute former battlefields and military bases. Linking environmental history to social, military, and political history, Footprints of War excavates the layers of history that make up the landscape of central Vietnam. Our conversation about the book reveals his deep understanding of Vietnamese culture and his original conceptualization of the meaning of war in the country.
Michael G. Vann is a professor of world history at California State University, Sacramento. A specialist in imperialism and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, he is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empires, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam (Oxford, 2018). When he’s not reading or talking about new books with smart people, he can be found surfing in Santa Cruz, California.
Footprints of War
Militarized Landscapes in Vietnam
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS 2018
October 31, 2019 Michael G. Vann
By now we all know that Vietnam is a country, not a war. But how have decades, and even centuries, of war impacted the land of this southeast Asian nation? Professor David A. Biggs of the University of California, Riverside, specializes in Vietnamese environmental history. In Footprints of War: Militarized Landscapes of Vietnam (University of Washington Press, 2018) he examines the impacts of warfare in the region around Hue in central Vietnam. Using cutting edge methodology drawn from GIS (graphic information system), aerial photography, and more traditional archival documents, Biggs finds legacies of war in the soil, water, and rain forests.
Starting with 14th-century battles between the Cham states and the invading Viet and continuing through the Ming Dynasty’s occupation in the early 1400s, the Tayson Rebellion (1771-1802) and the French colonial occupation from the 1880s to 1954, Biggs argues for an important pre-history of wars prior to the American War of the 1960s to January, 1973. The book ends with the American military machines “creative destruction” and a discussion of the toxic war remnants that pollute former battlefields and military bases. Linking environmental history to social, military, and political history, Footprints of War excavates the layers of history that make up the landscape of central Vietnam. Our conversation about the book reveals his deep understanding of Vietnamese culture and his original conceptualization of the meaning of war in the country.
Michael G. Vann is a professor of world history at California State University, Sacramento. A specialist in imperialism and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, he is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empires, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam (Oxford, 2018). When he’s not reading or talking about new books with smart people, he can be found surfing in Santa Cruz, California.
Research Interests:
MICHITAKE ASO Rubber and the Making of Vietnam An Ecological History, 1897-1975 UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS 2018 October 11, 2019 Michael G. Vann How can the history of rubber be used as a way to understand the history of... more
MICHITAKE ASO
Rubber and the Making of Vietnam
An Ecological History, 1897-1975
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS 2018
October 11, 2019 Michael G. Vann
How can the history of rubber be used as a way to understand the history of 20th-century Vietnam? In this episode of New Books in History, Michael G. Vann talks about Rubber and the Making of Vietnam: An Ecological History, 1897-1975 (University of North Carolina Press, 2018), with Michitake Aso, an Associate Professor of history at SUNY Albany. This extremely well-researched study of Vietnamese rubber plantations from the colonial origins to their near destruction during the American war opens new insights into the development of contemporary Vietnam. Dr. Aso explains such things as the difference between environmental and ecological history, how rubber plantations symbolized a type of French colonial modernization, the changing nature of French science, and the role of plantations in the First and Second Indochina Wars.
Michael G. Vann is a professor of world history at California State University, Sacramento. A specialist in imperialism and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, he is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empires, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam (Oxford University Press, 2018).
Rubber and the Making of Vietnam
An Ecological History, 1897-1975
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS 2018
October 11, 2019 Michael G. Vann
How can the history of rubber be used as a way to understand the history of 20th-century Vietnam? In this episode of New Books in History, Michael G. Vann talks about Rubber and the Making of Vietnam: An Ecological History, 1897-1975 (University of North Carolina Press, 2018), with Michitake Aso, an Associate Professor of history at SUNY Albany. This extremely well-researched study of Vietnamese rubber plantations from the colonial origins to their near destruction during the American war opens new insights into the development of contemporary Vietnam. Dr. Aso explains such things as the difference between environmental and ecological history, how rubber plantations symbolized a type of French colonial modernization, the changing nature of French science, and the role of plantations in the First and Second Indochina Wars.
Michael G. Vann is a professor of world history at California State University, Sacramento. A specialist in imperialism and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, he is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empires, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam (Oxford University Press, 2018).
Research Interests:
CLAIRE EDINGTON Beyond the Asylum: Mental Illness in French Colonial Vietnam CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS 2019 November 13, 2019 Michael G. Vann Both colonies and insane asylums are well known institutions of power. But what of asylums in... more
CLAIRE EDINGTON
Beyond the Asylum: Mental Illness in French Colonial Vietnam
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS 2019
November 13, 2019 Michael G. Vann
Both colonies and insane asylums are well known institutions of power. But what of asylums in Europe’s early 20th-century colonial empires? How did they operate? Who was confined in them? Who worked there? What was daily life like in such an institution? How did Western medical experts and the colonized population understand mental illness and its treatment? How did colonial racism impact mental illness? In this episode we chat with Claire Edington, Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego, about her new book of Beyond the Asylum: Mental Illness in French Colonial Vietnam (Cornell University Press, 2019).
Beyond the Asylum draws from extensive archival research in Vietnam and France. A gifted writer, Edington is particularly good at presenting the life stories of patients, doctors, and workers drawn into French Indochina’s mental health system. She also looks at the families of patients and the Vietnamese language popular press, as they tried to make sense of troubling issues around mental health, including how the French colonizers understood and treated psychological afflictions. More than a history of the asylum as an institution, Edington uses mental health care facilities as a prism to explore crucial transformations of Vietnamese society in the era of high imperialism. This wide-ranging conversation will be of interest to listeners interested in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, imperialism, French history, and the study and treatment of mental illness. The book is an excellent complement to the increasingly rich historiography of colonial Vietnam.
Michael G. Vann is a professor of world history at California State University, Sacramento. A specialist in imperialism and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, he is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empires, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam (Oxford, 2018). When he’s not reading or talking about new books with smart people, Mike can be found surfing in Santa Cruz, California.
Beyond the Asylum: Mental Illness in French Colonial Vietnam
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS 2019
November 13, 2019 Michael G. Vann
Both colonies and insane asylums are well known institutions of power. But what of asylums in Europe’s early 20th-century colonial empires? How did they operate? Who was confined in them? Who worked there? What was daily life like in such an institution? How did Western medical experts and the colonized population understand mental illness and its treatment? How did colonial racism impact mental illness? In this episode we chat with Claire Edington, Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego, about her new book of Beyond the Asylum: Mental Illness in French Colonial Vietnam (Cornell University Press, 2019).
Beyond the Asylum draws from extensive archival research in Vietnam and France. A gifted writer, Edington is particularly good at presenting the life stories of patients, doctors, and workers drawn into French Indochina’s mental health system. She also looks at the families of patients and the Vietnamese language popular press, as they tried to make sense of troubling issues around mental health, including how the French colonizers understood and treated psychological afflictions. More than a history of the asylum as an institution, Edington uses mental health care facilities as a prism to explore crucial transformations of Vietnamese society in the era of high imperialism. This wide-ranging conversation will be of interest to listeners interested in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, imperialism, French history, and the study and treatment of mental illness. The book is an excellent complement to the increasingly rich historiography of colonial Vietnam.
Michael G. Vann is a professor of world history at California State University, Sacramento. A specialist in imperialism and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, he is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empires, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam (Oxford, 2018). When he’s not reading or talking about new books with smart people, Mike can be found surfing in Santa Cruz, California.
Research Interests:
https://newbooksnetwork.com/howard-jones-my-lai-vietnam-1968-and-the-descent-into-darkness-oxford-up-2017/ HOWARD JONES My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2017 February 7, 2020 Michael G. Vann... more
https://newbooksnetwork.com/howard-jones-my-lai-vietnam-1968-and-the-descent-into-darkness-oxford-up-2017/
HOWARD JONES
My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2017
February 7, 2020 Michael G. Vann
In his book My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness (Oxford UP, 2017), Dr. Howard Jones describes how on March 16th, 1968, several units of American soldiers descended upon a collection of small villages in Central Vietnam, now collectively known as My Lai. In the space of a few short hours, they committed one of America’s most infamous war crimes. While failing to find the enemy troops that their intelligence insisted were there, the Americans forced dozens of unarmed elderly men, women, children, and babies out of their homes at gun point. An unknown number of women were raped as other soldiers set fire to their homes. In an act of barbarism that can correctly be compared to Nazi violence, several hundred Vietnamese civilians were forced into ditches and machine gunned. Only three brave Americans in a helicopter tried to stop the slaughter. Almost immediately, the Army covered up the massacre. Officers, including a young Colin Powell, swept the incident under the rug and fabricated an alternative narrative of the events. Thanks to a lone whistle blower and the tireless efforts of investigative journalists like Seymour Hersh the story was eventually uncovered.
Howard Jones is University research Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Alabama.
Michael G. Vann is a professor of world history at California State University, Sacramento. A specialist in imperialism and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, he is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empires, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam (Oxford University Press, 2018). When he’s not reading or talking about new books with smart people, Mike can be found surfing in Santa Cruz, California.
HOWARD JONES
My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2017
February 7, 2020 Michael G. Vann
In his book My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness (Oxford UP, 2017), Dr. Howard Jones describes how on March 16th, 1968, several units of American soldiers descended upon a collection of small villages in Central Vietnam, now collectively known as My Lai. In the space of a few short hours, they committed one of America’s most infamous war crimes. While failing to find the enemy troops that their intelligence insisted were there, the Americans forced dozens of unarmed elderly men, women, children, and babies out of their homes at gun point. An unknown number of women were raped as other soldiers set fire to their homes. In an act of barbarism that can correctly be compared to Nazi violence, several hundred Vietnamese civilians were forced into ditches and machine gunned. Only three brave Americans in a helicopter tried to stop the slaughter. Almost immediately, the Army covered up the massacre. Officers, including a young Colin Powell, swept the incident under the rug and fabricated an alternative narrative of the events. Thanks to a lone whistle blower and the tireless efforts of investigative journalists like Seymour Hersh the story was eventually uncovered.
Howard Jones is University research Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Alabama.
Michael G. Vann is a professor of world history at California State University, Sacramento. A specialist in imperialism and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, he is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empires, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam (Oxford University Press, 2018). When he’s not reading or talking about new books with smart people, Mike can be found surfing in Santa Cruz, California.
Research Interests:
Today we sit down with Michael Vann, and discuss his exciting new graphic history "The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire Disease and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam". Podcast by Dr. Eric Jones of NIU's Center for Southeast Asian Studies.
Research Interests: Epidemiology, Infectious disease epidemiology, Race and Racism, Environmental Studies, Urban Planning, and 13 moreColonialism, Vietnamese History, History of Plague, French colonialism, Public Health, Infectious Diseases, France, Imperialism, French Colonial History, Anti-Colonialism, Hanoi, Rats and mice, and Water Supply and Sewerage
Dave and Matt sit down with Michael Vann to talk about his new graphic history, The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam. http://podhistory.libsyn.com/ep-42-the-great-hanoi-rat-hunt Your hosts... more
Dave and Matt sit down with Michael Vann to talk about his new graphic history, The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam.
http://podhistory.libsyn.com/ep-42-the-great-hanoi-rat-hunt
Your hosts discuss the joy of finding unexpected things in the archive, the necessity of writing a colonial urban history as a world history, the importance of cultural history and thick description, and the opportunities that graphic histories give teachers in the classroom.
Also, check out Mike's excellently-titled article in the Journal of World History: Sex and the Colonial City: Mapping Masculinity, Whiteness, and Desire in French Occupied Hanoi
Recommendations:
All - The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam by Michael G. Vann and Liz Clarke
Micheal - Melancholy Order: Asian Migration and the Globalization of Borders by Adam M. McKeown
Dave - Matatu: A History of Popular Transportation in Nairobi by Kenda Mutongi
Ghana on the Go: African Mobility in the Age of Motor Transportation by Jennifer Anne Hart
Matt - Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States
by James C. Scott
Music:
Angkor by Eric Jones
Le Festin by Camille from the Ratatouille soundtrack
Bullet with Butterfly Wings by the Smashing Pumpkins
Godzilla by Blue Öyster Cult
http://podhistory.libsyn.com/ep-42-the-great-hanoi-rat-hunt
Your hosts discuss the joy of finding unexpected things in the archive, the necessity of writing a colonial urban history as a world history, the importance of cultural history and thick description, and the opportunities that graphic histories give teachers in the classroom.
Also, check out Mike's excellently-titled article in the Journal of World History: Sex and the Colonial City: Mapping Masculinity, Whiteness, and Desire in French Occupied Hanoi
Recommendations:
All - The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam by Michael G. Vann and Liz Clarke
Micheal - Melancholy Order: Asian Migration and the Globalization of Borders by Adam M. McKeown
Dave - Matatu: A History of Popular Transportation in Nairobi by Kenda Mutongi
Ghana on the Go: African Mobility in the Age of Motor Transportation by Jennifer Anne Hart
Matt - Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States
by James C. Scott
Music:
Angkor by Eric Jones
Le Festin by Camille from the Ratatouille soundtrack
Bullet with Butterfly Wings by the Smashing Pumpkins
Godzilla by Blue Öyster Cult
Research Interests: Southeast Asian Studies, Epidemiology, Infectious disease epidemiology, French History, Urban History, and 12 moreWorld History, Vietnamese History, History of Plague, Urbanism, French colonialism, French colonial Indochina, Vietnam, History of Imperialism, Southeast Asian history, Imperialism, French Colonial History, and Hanoi
Join us as Michael Vann and Eric Jones sit down to engage issues of history and memory, state-constructed narratives, political silences, and uncomfortable relationships within the contemporary ASEAN framework Gendering Narratives of... more
Join us as Michael Vann and Eric Jones sit down to engage issues of history and memory, state-constructed narratives, political silences, and uncomfortable relationships within the contemporary ASEAN framework
Gendering Narratives of Cold War Violence in Indonesian, Vietnamese, Cambodian Museums w/ Michael Vann by Southeast Asia Crossroads Podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Listen to the podcast here:
https://soundcloud.com/seacrossroads/gendering-narratives-of-cold-war-violence-in-indonesian-vietnamesecambodian-museums-w-michael-vann
Gendering Narratives of Cold War Violence in Indonesian, Vietnamese, Cambodian Museums w/ Michael Vann by Southeast Asia Crossroads Podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Listen to the podcast here:
https://soundcloud.com/seacrossroads/gendering-narratives-of-cold-war-violence-in-indonesian-vietnamesecambodian-museums-w-michael-vann
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Southeast Asian Studies, Museum Studies, Violence, Indonesian History, and 15 moreCold War and Culture, Genocide Studies, Indonesian Studies, Cold War, Political Violence and Terrorism, Southeast Asia, Cambodia, Vietnamese History, Violence Against Women, Vietnam War, Southeast Asian history, Cold War history, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, Vietnamese studies, and Political Violence in Cambodia & the Khmer Rouge
Today we sit down with Michael Vann, and discuss his exciting new graphic history "The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire Disease and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam" (Oxford Univesity Press, 2018). Link:... more
Today we sit down with Michael Vann, and discuss his exciting new graphic history "The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire Disease and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam" (Oxford Univesity Press, 2018).
Link: https://soundcloud.com/seacrossroads/the-great-hanoi-rat-hunt-with-michael-vann
The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt with Michael Vann by Southeast Asia Crossroads Podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Link: https://soundcloud.com/seacrossroads/the-great-hanoi-rat-hunt-with-michael-vann
The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt with Michael Vann by Southeast Asia Crossroads Podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Research Interests: History, Southeast Asian Studies, Infectious disease epidemiology, French History, History of Medicine, and 15 moreEnvironmental Studies, Urban History, Environmental History, Colonialism, Vietnamese History, History of Plague, French colonialism, French colonial Indochina, Vietnam, Urban Environmental History, Southeast Asian history, Rodentia, Imperialism, French Colonial History, and Hanoi
Cities are one of the most important sites of historical interaction in world history. Within the relatively confined space of the urban center social classes, ethno-religious groups, and competing political factions are forced to engage... more
Cities are one of the most important sites of historical interaction in world history. Within the relatively confined space of the urban center social classes, ethno-religious groups, and competing political factions are forced to engage with each other producing unique cultural forms, systems, and processes. Colonial cities present some of the most dynamic examples of this phenomenon. Southeast Asia is home to a number of cities shaped by the history of colonialism with Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, providing an ideal case study for exploring the urban colonial encounter. This documentary examines the ways in which French colonial rule shaped Phnom Penh from the late 19th century to the 1930s. In particular, the film analyzes the relationship between architecture and imperial rule, arguing that the colonial city created a unique style specific to that distinct historical moment, all the while placing this historical transformation within the larger context of Cambodian history.
Funded by the Center for Khmer Studies and the Council of American Overseas Research Centers,
Gold Medal, 2014 International Movie Awards
Funded by the Center for Khmer Studies and the Council of American Overseas Research Centers,
Gold Medal, 2014 International Movie Awards
Research Interests: History, Southeast Asian Studies, French History, Architecture, Urban History, and 11 moreUrban Planning, Southeast Asia, Cambodia, Architectural History, Urban Studies, French colonialism, French colonial Indochina, Cambodian History, French Colonial History, Phnom Penh, and Architecture and Public Spaces
Systems of control are essential. Complex societies cannot function without institutions and practices that guide, monitor, and discipline individuals. Scholars from a variety of disciplines have placed critiques of political, economic,... more
Systems of control are essential. Complex societies cannot function without institutions and practices that guide, monitor, and discipline individuals. Scholars from a variety of disciplines have placed critiques of political, economic, and cultural management at the center of their discussions of modernity. Fifty years ago, Samuel P. Huntington published Political Order in Changing Societies, arguing that what distinguished states was not their ideology but whether they effectively governed or not. His statism rejected the bipolar ideological certainties of Cold War divisions in favor of the mechanics of governing. At the same time but in a dramatically different milieu, Michel Foucault’s studies of hospitals, prisons, and sexuality turned attention away from the formal political state and towards scores of other institutions that disciplined and punished members of a society. Such a theorization of power called attention to the ways in which what might seem benign and banal was actually essential to creating, maintaining, and reproducing social elites’ hegemony. While by any metric Foucault and Huntington could not have been more different, their critiques of systems of control belie the significance of such power relationships to academic studies. Two recent books on Southeast/East Asia capture the diverse approaches to the study of power. If Sheena Chestnut Greitens’ Dictators and Their Secret Police: Coercive Institutions and State Violence is a conventional work of political science that uses South Korea, the Philippines, and Taiwan as case-studies to advance a theoretical model, Jan M. Padios’ A Nation on the Line: Call Centers as Postcolonial Predicaments in the Philippines is a beautifully written anthropological study of a crucial phenomenon of late capitalism’s globalization. In both their subject matter and their disciplinary framing, these two books would seem to be at odds with each other. Yet when considered together they offer valuable insights into the management of Southeast/East Asian societies in the late 20th century.
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Book Review: Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory, and the Photographic Record in Cambodia Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory, and the Photographic Record in Cambodia by Michelle Caswell . Madison : University of Wisconsin Press , 2014 . xii + 231 pp.; illustrations; notes; index; p...more
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[ Abstract ] This article is a subsection of a comparative analysis of depictions of violence in Jakarta's Museum of the Indonesian Communist Party's Treachery, Ho Chi Minh City's War Remnants Museum, and Phnom... more
[ Abstract ] This article is a subsection of a comparative analysis of depictions of violence in Jakarta's Museum of the Indonesian Communist Party's Treachery, Ho Chi Minh City's War Remnants Museum, and Phnom Penh's Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. In comparing these public history sites, I analyze how memories of mass violence were central to state formation in both Suharto's anti-Communist New Order (1966-1998), the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (1976-present), and Cambodia since the collapse of Democratic Kampuchea (1979-present). While this comparison points out specific distinctions about the role of the military, the nature of revolution, and conceptions of gender, it argues for a central similarity in the use of a mythology of victimization in building these post-conflict nation-states. This article focuses on my gendered analysis of the use of images of women and children in each museum. Depending on context and political purpose, these museums cast women as tragic victim, revolutionary heroine, or threat to the social order. My analysis of gender places stereotypical images of violence against women (the trope of women and children as the * Professor, California State University, USA. mikevann@csus.edu
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Southeast Asian Studies, Museum Studies, Violence, Indonesian History, and 10 moreGender, Vietnamese History, Comparative genocide, Art and Aesthetics of the Cold War, Cambodian History, Southeast Asian history, Cold War history, Vietnamese, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and Sexual and Gender Based Violence
The success of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel "The Sympathizer" has brought attention to Vietnamese diasporic literature. In his wide-ranging academic work "Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the... more
The success of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel "The Sympathizer" has brought attention to Vietnamese diasporic literature. In his wide-ranging academic work "Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War," Nguyen discusses the variety of literary genres explored by Vietnamese refugees, including graphic memoirs. Not to be confused with graphic novels, which are works of fiction, the genre of graphic memoir uses the medium of cartoons to situate personal stories within the context of larger historical processes.Whether we use the adjective graphic, illustrated, or comic, this subgenre of diasporic Vietnamese family histories is surprisingly robust. Taken as a whole, they represent an important cultural development in the literature and art of exile. With slowly uncovered secrets, hidden family members, and unspoken trauma, these three authors use gothic elements to tell their refugee family histories.
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Research Interests: Gender Studies, French History, Masculinity Studies, Gender and Sexuality, History of Sexuality, and 14 moreWorld History, Colonialism, Vietnamese History, Masculinity, Whiteness Studies, French colonialism, Masculinities, Critical Race Theory and Whiteness theory, History of Prostitution, France, Critical Whiteness Studies, Imperialism, Hanoi, and Historical Studies
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This book reproduces and analyzes a collection of crucial primary documents from the early Twentieth-Century. These simple yet rich visual sources provide us with a clever insight into the nature of the colonial order of things. Joyeux... more
This book reproduces and analyzes a collection of crucial primary documents from the early Twentieth-Century. These simple yet rich visual sources provide us with a clever insight into the nature of the colonial order of things. Joyeux was a French artist who served in the colonial service as an art teacher and school administrator. Living primarily in and around Saigon, he captured many aspects of daily life in the French colony in a series of humorous, critical, and, at times, somber cartoons. Taking on individuals such as corrupt civil servants, decadent plantation owners, and scheming Vietnamese housekeepers, his pen and ink drawings spared few. Despite this, he never lost his humanity and empathy. As a member of the community he studied, Joyeux offers the reader an informed analysis of French colonial society from the inside. In addition to translating the cartoon captions, Vann and Montague provide an introductory essay and explications of each image. https://www.worldcat.org/title/colonial-good-life-a-commentary-on-andre-joyeuxs-vision-of-french-indochina/oclc/263095177
Research Interests: History, Cultural History, Cultural Studies, Southeast Asian Studies, French History, and 13 moreRace and Racism, Race and Ethnicity, Colonialism, Vietnamese History, French colonialism, French colonial Indochina, Vietnam, Southeast Asian history, Comics and Graphic Novels, Imperialism, Cartoons, Vietnamese studies, and French Colonial Empire
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Organising under the Revolution: Unions and the State in Java, 1945-48 Jafar Suryomenggolo Singapore and Kyoto: NUS Press in association with Kyoto University Press, 2013, xiii+215p.Visitors to Lawang Sewu might be confused as to the... more
Organising under the Revolution: Unions and the State in Java, 1945-48 Jafar Suryomenggolo Singapore and Kyoto: NUS Press in association with Kyoto University Press, 2013, xiii+215p.Visitors to Lawang Sewu might be confused as to the building's significance. Situated in the heart of Semarang on the north coast of Central Java, the building is Indonesia's most famous haunted house; hence the crowds of domestic tourists. In addition to ghosts, the massive colonial era build- ing is also home to conflicting and competing historical narratives. Once the center of the Dutch East Indies Railway Company, Lawang Sewu was an important site in the history of imperialism and the struggle for independence. Today, as in most of post-colonial Indonesia, the public history monuments in Semarang speak to the role of the military and other state institutions in the revo- lution. For over three decades, Suharto's New Order promoted this army-centric narrative as the only acceptable story ...
In French-ruled Hanoi, as in many other colonies, the colonial state’s healthcare policies played a central role in the construction of the colonial order.1 The white colonizers were perpetually anxious about the state of their health and... more
In French-ruled Hanoi, as in many other colonies, the colonial state’s healthcare policies played a central role in the construction of the colonial order.1 The white colonizers were perpetually anxious about the state of their health and the omnipresent threat of tropical disease. Hanoi’s busy hospitals and graveyards darkened the white experience in the city.2 Despite attempts to use gallows humor to alleviate their angst and the access to the very comfortable lifestyle they enjoyed as the conquering elite, the collective obsession with disease exposed white vulnerability in the tropics; a vulnerability which political, military and economic force could not erase.3 In both the official and popular mind, French perception of the danger to white health combined with fears of the colonized Other. The result was a racialized discourse of disease which fused and confused biological and political issues. When this discourse was put into practice, the result was an authoritarian state th...
Identity and Pleasure: The Politics of Indonesian Screen CultureAriel HeryantoSingapore: NUS Press in association with Kyoto: Kyoto University Press, 2014, xiv+246p.At the risk of rehashing the old orientalist cliches we must acknowledge... more
Identity and Pleasure: The Politics of Indonesian Screen CultureAriel HeryantoSingapore: NUS Press in association with Kyoto: Kyoto University Press, 2014, xiv+246p.At the risk of rehashing the old orientalist cliches we must acknowledge that contemporary Indonesia can be a bewildering place. This holds true both for outside observers and for Indonesians engaged in fashioning the practice of daily life. During my daily motorcycle commute to Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta (Jogja) in 2012-13, the massive billboards at major intersections never ceased to fascinate me and make me question what I thought I knew about Indonesia. Advertisements for self-help seminars by Muslim televangelists competed with images of Korean boy bands; Coca-Cola offered itself as the perfect drink for breaking the Ramadan fast; an appliance store suggested buying a refrigerator to celebrate Kartini Day (a national holiday honoring a Javanese princess who promoted education for women); and portraits of ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
On 9 February 1929, at eight in the evening, Alfred François Bazin left the home of his congaï métisse (mixed-race mistress) on the route de Hue. Bazin was the director of the Office générale de main d'oeuvre indochinoise, an official... more
On 9 February 1929, at eight in the evening, Alfred François Bazin left the home of his congaï métisse (mixed-race mistress) on the route de Hue. Bazin was the director of the Office générale de main d'oeuvre indochinoise, an official sounding name for a privately run organization specializing in "recruiting" labor for Michelin plantations. His business engaged in exploiting what was becoming Tonkin's most lucrative commodity: low-cost manual labor. Working as a middleman, Bazin played an instrumental role in dispatching thousands of impoverished peasants to isolated locations in Cochinchine's Red Earth region. Some workers were sent to far-flung destinations in the Pacific such as New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, and Tahiti. These desperate souls were willing to leave their ancestral villages for the promise of a good wage and guaranteed work. After the long and difficult journeys during which they were treated like chattel cargo, they found poor conditions, a...
