Tag: Vietnam

Summer 2010 Bibliography

It’s the last day of August, so here is a list of the articles and books I’ve read over the past three months.  Mostly, anyway – it doesn’t count the novel I wrote that I read twice (editing) or the two short stories of mine I also read for editing purposes.  I’ve organized them by place, since I was specifically researching certain countries.  Beyond that, there are a few themes you might note from the titles: sexuality, especially women’s sexuality; modernity and the supernatural; and place and modernity.  Looks like a lot of stuff about sexuality, though.  Huh.

I feel a little bad about not reading more fiction.  To be fair, the one novel I got through was 900 pages long (and I’d been reading it since winter – this only represents the last 500 pages or so).  Also my Vietnamese class took over my life.

It was a lot of fun putting this together.  It gave me a sense of progress and also helped me to keep my thoughts organized.  Maybe I’ll do another one for the autumn.

I haven’t included the DOIs for most of the papers, assuming that you can find the journals without too much trouble.  If you are having difficulties finding the things cited, drop a comment (or email) and I’ll help you out.  I also haven’t included very many comments (and certainly not scholarly comments) because my notes tend to be rambling and, to a certain extent, incoherent.  But if you want to discuss a certain paper, you can leave a comment.

Non-place specific

Oakes, Timothy.  “Place and the Paradox of Modernity.”  Annals of the Association of American Geographers 87.3 (Sept. 1997): 509-531.  Retrieved August 2010 from the web.  <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2564066>.

  • What is it Gertrude Stein wrote, “…it was as if a bell rang within me”?  I really enjoyed this paper.

Tuan, Yi-Fu.  “Language and the Making of Place: A Narrative-Descriptive Approach.”  Annals of the Association of American Geographers 81.4 (1991).  684-696.

Cambodia

Sotheary, Mey Son.  “My Sister.”  Virtual Lotus: Modern Fiction of Southeast Asia. Trans. Tomoko Okada, Vuth Reth, and Teri Shaffer Yamada.  Ed. Teri Shaffer Yamada.  Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002.  45-56.

  • Better in Khmai, or so I am told by those who read the language.  Takes an unusually tolerant stance for the region.

China

Sinn, Elizabeth.  “Women at Work: Chinese Brothel Keepers in Nineteenth-Century Hong Kong.”  Journal of Women’s History 19.3 (2007): 87-111. DOI: 10.1353/jowh.2007.0062.

  • This was a really fun paper.  I totally found it by accident, too — I was searching for papers on family business for my job.

Thailand

Mills, Mary Beth.  “Attack of the Widow Ghosts: Gender, Death, and Modernity in Northeast Thailand.”  Bewitching Women, Pious Men: Gender and Body Politics in Southeast Asia. Aihwa Ong and Michael G. Peletz, eds.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.  244-273.

  • This was a great story.  My future cousin-in-law (is that a recognized kinship term?) thought this would make a great one-act play.  If I ever figure out how to write plays, I’m going to write it.

Muecke, Marjorie.  Female sexuality in Thai discourses about Maechii (“lay nuns”).  Culture, Health and Sexuality.  6.3 (May-June 2004): 221-238.

Thaweesit, Suchada.  “The Fluidity of Thai Women’s Gendered and Sexual Subjectiveness.”  Culture, Health & Sexuality.  6.3 (May-June 2004): 205-219.

Watarachanakool, Pornvipa.  “Science, Technology and the Supernatural in Contemporary Thai Novels.”  Manusya: Journal of Humanities.  9.1 (March 2006): 38-51.

Vietnam

Duong, Thu Huong.  “The Story of an Actress.”  Virtual Lotus: Modern Fiction of Southeast Asia. Trans. Bac Hoai Tran and Courtney Norris.  Ed. Teri Shaffer Yamada.  Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002.  298-320.

Khai, Hung.  “Anh Phải Sống.”  Anh Phải Sống. Hà Nội: Đời nay, 1934.  n.p.

  • Not the greatest story, but not too hard for beginning Vietnamese readers.  (By “beginning,” I really mean “advanced students who are beginning to read stories and novels in Vietnamese, I guess.)

Khai, Hung.  “You Must Live.”  Virtual Lotus: Modern Fiction of Southeast Asia. Trans.Bac Hoai Tran and Courtney Norris.  Ed. Teri Shaffer Yamada.  Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002.  278-283.

Khai, Hung.  “You Must Live.”  Trans. Truc Huy.  Saigon Online.  Retrieved 25 August 2010. <http://www.saigonline.com/truc_huy/khaihung.htm>

  • Not the greatest translation.  But then again, I wasn’t a huge fan of the story.

Nguyen, The Anh.  “The Vietnamization of the Cham Deity Po Nagar.”  Essays into Vietnamese Pasts. Eds. K. W. Taylor and John K. Whitmore.  Ithaca, N.Y. : Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1995.  42-50.

Quach, Trang.  “Femininity and sexual agency among young unmarried women in Hanoi.”  Culture, Health, and Sexuality.  10(Suppliment, June 2008): S151-S161.

Thu-Huong, Nguyen-Vo.  “History Interrupted: Life after Material Death in South Vietnamese and Diasporic Works of Fiction.”  Journal of Vietnamese Studies.  3.1 (2008): 1-35.

US/England

Anderson, Jourdan.  “Letter from Jourdan Anderson to His Former Master.”  Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery.  Leon F. Litwack, ed.  New York: Knopf, 1979.  Retrieved from the web 31 August 2010.  <http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/pdocs/anderson_letter.pdf>

Stephenson, Neil.  Quicksilver.  New York: William Morrow, 2003.

For those who have made it this far, here’s a fun song for the end of summer.  The video is quite avant garde, or less politely, it looks like a bunch of hipsters threw up on the set.  But the song is great: “Dog Days are Gone” by Florence and the Machine.