When the Nguyễn Dynasty came to power in 1802, there was a Confucian Temple (Văn Miếu 文廟) in Long Hồ hamlet, outside the imperial citadel.
Knowledge production continuously transforms alongside changes in society and technology. At times, however, societal and technological changes are so profound that forms of knowledge that
Today I stumbled across an article by historian Thongchai Winichakul on “Southeast Asian Studies in the Age of STEM Education and Hyper-Utilitarianism.” Being a fan
For the past six months I have been living in Brunei. Before coming here, like many people I know, I knew very little about the
In this video, Professor Victor T. King of the Institute of Asian Studies at Universiti Brunei Darussalam continues his discussion with Professor Ooi Keat Gin,
As a blog that has the word “history” in its title, I think we need to pause and talk a little bit about that word,
I recently had a talk about China’s Belt and Road Initiative with Bruno Jetin, an economist and the director of the Institute of Asian Studies
Ooi Keat Gin is an historian who has written extensively on World War II and its aftermath on Borneo. Among his many works are Rising
In this final video in this three-part conversation, we talk about Area Studies in the current age of the global dominance of English.
This video continues the conversation started in the previous post about Southeast Asian Studies. We start by talking about the article “Can There Be Southeast
I’ve been sick recently, but I have a lot of ideas in my head and so I decided to record a video about them. I’ve
Anyone who has visited my flash blog about the need to transform Asian Studies for the digital age (Content Asian Studies) or who has read
These days there are many universities in Asia that devote incredible amounts of energy towards improving the ranking of their respective university in world ranking
Last summer, in preparation for the 10th Engaging With Vietnam conference, we had a conversation with Dr. Khuất Thu Hồng, founder and director of the
Here is the second part of a conversation with Victor. T. King about tourism and heritage and tourism in Southeast Asia. Victor T. King is
I recently had a talk with Professor Victor T. King about tourism and heritage in Southeast Asia. Victor T. King is Professor of Borneo Studies
Earlier this year as part of the “Vietnam ‘67” series of essays that appeared in the New York Times, historian Olga Dror published a piece
I recently gained access to a database of PhD dissertations and MA theses in China. Out of curiosity, I did a search for “越南” (Vietnam)
I was reading Phan Ngọc’s The Characteristics of Vietnamese Culture (Bản sắc văn hóa Việt Nam, 1998) and came across a passage where the author
The theme of the upcoming Engaging With Vietnam Conference (15-21 December 2018) is “Beyond Dichotomies: Vietnam from Multiple Perspectives.” For more information about the theme,
We would like to announce that the 10th Engaging With Vietnam: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue Conference will be held from 15-21 December 2018 in Hồ Chí
The most recent Engaging With Vietnam conference (the 9th) focused on the topics of tourism, development, sustainability, and the preservation of heritage/culture. In the case
The 10th Engaging With Vietnam will be held from 15-21 December 2018. For more information, see engagingwithvietnam.org.
I’ve spent my entire adult life on islands – 6 years on Taiwan and 23 years on Oahu (Hawaii) – and all of the professional
About a week ago, historian Vũ Đức Liêm published an article in the online journal Tia Sáng on “‘Small,’ ‘Brief’ and ‘Narrow’ Histories or a
There are different types of knowledge that have been (and continue to be) produced about Southeast Asia, from area studies knowledge produced in places like
This is a discussion about how innovation in some sectors and the lack of innovation in others is transforming the academic landscape and contributing to
Plenty has been written about Confucianism in Vietnam, but I find that the studies to date (particularly those in English) have generally not examined the
I’ve long said that Christopher Goscha’s survey of Vietnamese history, Vietnam: A New History, will blow readers’ minds. Well, here is video evidence of that:
This video is an assessment of the New Mandala blog at ANU as an example of “Content Asian Studies.” For more on what I mean
This video is about the importance of spacing out, and it also comments on Christopher Goscha’s “Vietnam: A New History.”
This vlog introduces and discusses a 1969 film from North Vietnam called “The Front is Calling” (Tiền Tuyến Gọi).
This week’s Vlog is about totems, a book by anthropologist Đinh Hồng Hải (Những biểu tượng đặc trưng trong văn hoá truyền thống Việt Nam,
This video is of a conversation that we had in the summer of 2017 with Nguyễn Sử, the author of a recent book on the
[I posted this piece on the Content Asian Studies site. Given that it covers topics (the future of Humanities/area studies education in and outside of
I recently had the pleasure of reading and writing a review of Kathlene Baldanza’s Ming China and Vietnam: Negotiating Borders in Early Modern Asia (Cambridge:
I think it’s time to start Vlogging. Here is my first Vlog, on Phan Bội Châu’s 1908 “Examination of Vietnamese History” (Việt Nam quốc sử kháo
There is a new hotel in the heart of Saigon that is unique. It is called “The Myst Dong Khoi,” and what makes it unique
Seven years after starting “Le Minh Khai’s Southeast Asian History blog,” I feel like all of the world has changed dramatically except for one part.
In the second chapter of Việt Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present author Ben Kiernan has a passage where he writes about
Engaging With Vietnam, the only annual Vietnam-focused multidisciplinary conference in the world will hold its ninth conference in Hồ Chí Minh City/Bình Dương/An Giang from
I was reading the Annotated Classic of Waterways (Shuijing zhu 水經注), a sixth century text that contains information about the Red River Delta region and
[12/11/2017. Note: Professor Kiernan has responded to this post and has graciously pointed out that a comment I made is incorrect. There is one character
There are certain ideas about early Vietnamese history that one can easily find expressed on the Internet, such as the ideas that 1) Hòa Bình
In the early nineteenth century, Trịnh Hoài Đức, a Vietnamese scholar-official of Chinese descent, compiled a geographical gazetteer of the Mekong Delta region entitled the
At the recent APEC meeting in Vietnam, President Donald Trump of the USA was apparently asked what he thought of Le Minh Khai by two
One topic that has received very little attention by historians is twentieth-century Southeast Asian popular culture, especially popular culture in the 1950s-1980s. There is a
The eighth Engaging With Vietnam conference, held in Honolulu in October 2016, focused on the theme of “Engaging With Vietnam through Scholarship and the Arts.”
In the summer of 2016 I gave a talk at Nhà Sàn Collective, an art space in Hanoi, on some of the historical ideas that
While I’m not particularly interested in political history, I always find it important to keep up with developments in that field, as new scholarship can
