Vietnam in the Twentieth Century: History, Culture, and Identity
EASTD 144
Subject & Catalog Number
Course Information
Description
This lecture course introduces students to the modern history and culture of Vietnam by examining major visions of “Vietnam” as a state and as a people that emerged over the twentieth century. Drawing on historical narratives and cultural productions, the course explores themes such as ideas about the origins of Vietnamese society and culture, Vietnam’s relations with its neighbors, colonialism, anticolonialism and nationalism, war, and postwar challenges. Rather than treating “Vietnam” as a continuous and unified entity stretching back to the prehistoric Dong Son culture, the course highlights competing understandings of “Vietnam” and of what it has meant to be “Vietnamese,” as they took shape at key moments in the country’s modern history.
Available for Harvard Cross Registration
