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Cindy A. Nguyen

Author of Bibliotactics

  • New Book: Bibliotactics (UC Press 2026)
  • Research
  • Book Reviews
  • Digital Humanities
  • Abridged CV
  • Art Practice & Community Work
Cindy A. Nguyen

Film

Animated Shorts

Lost & Found (2018) 7 minute Animated Short

Lost & Found from Goldy on Vimeo.

one small step (2019) 7 minute animated short

The Present (2016) 4 minute animated short

 

Filmmaking Notes to Self

  1. Build connection and investment to character early on. Cultivate compassion, curiosity, tenderness.
  2. Element of surprise – suddenness, turn of events, ‘things are not as they seem’
  3. Moral and concrete takeaway point

Top Posts & Pages

  • BOOK REVIEW: Nicholas Dirks' Castes of Mind
    BOOK REVIEW: Nicholas Dirks' Castes of Mind
  • BOOK REVIEW: M.N. Srinivas' Social Change in Modern India
    BOOK REVIEW: M.N. Srinivas' Social Change in Modern India
  • BOOK REVIEW Vu Trong Phung's Luc Xi: Prostitution and Venereal Disease in Colonial Hanoi, trans. Shaun Kingsley Malarney
    BOOK REVIEW Vu Trong Phung's Luc Xi: Prostitution and Venereal Disease in Colonial Hanoi, trans. Shaun Kingsley Malarney
  • BOOK REVIEW Penny Edwards' Cambodge: The Cultivation of a Nation 1860-1945 (2007)
    BOOK REVIEW Penny Edwards' Cambodge: The Cultivation of a Nation 1860-1945 (2007)
  • Imagining ‘America’: My Mother’s Refugee Journey to America
    Imagining ‘America’: My Mother’s Refugee Journey to America
  • About
    About
  • Edward Said, Orientalism, and Caste: The Development of a Discourse and Field of Study
    Edward Said, Orientalism, and Caste: The Development of a Discourse and Field of Study
  • Book Reviews
    Book Reviews
  • Orthodox v. Revisionist v. Vietnam-centrism in Vietnam War Histories
    Orthodox v. Revisionist v. Vietnam-centrism in Vietnam War Histories
  • BOOK REVIEW: Bernard Cohn's An Anthropologist Among Historians
    BOOK REVIEW: Bernard Cohn's An Anthropologist Among Historians

Historian-Artist

Cindy Anh Nguyen is assistant professor in the Information Studies department and Digital Humanities program at University of California, Los Angeles. Her forthcoming book, Bibliotactics: Libraries and the Colonial Public in Vietnam (University of California Press, 2026, Preorder here) uncovers how libraries functioned as both instruments of colonial dominance and an experimental space of public critique. Her research questions examine the historical and socio-technical production of knowledge in Southeast Asia through libraries, encyclopedia, visual media, and language through feminist, decolonial, and critical approaches. Nguyen is also a public scholar and community artist exploring themes of memory, translation, and migration.

Available now for preorder with UC Press with the 30% promo code UCPSAVE30

Courses

In Progress: Decolonial Work Teaching and Community Website

In Progress: Digital Humanities Project Management & Public Communication Course Website

Syllabus

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Recent Talks

Bibliotactics Published: Available Open Access Globally, Book Talks, Podcasts

After a long journey, Bibliotactics: Libraries and the Colonial Public in Vietnam is now available! Free Open Access or Print copy through UC Press (code UCPSAVE30 for 30% off). Follow specific book related events, see video recordings and teaching resources here: https://bibliotactics.com Below are a flurry of recap of the past month: Spring in person and…

Saigon Experimental “Book Talks”: Art, Community, Women’s Reading, August 8-9, 2025

Join us in Saigon for experimental community talks around reading, feminism, and art. It’s an honor and dream to “start” my book tour in Saigon (where the intellectual/personal/political journey began) alongside feminist cothinkers Minh and Yen. August 8, 2025: “Library History as Data-Art-Life: Fabulating the Vietnamese Past” August 9, 2025: “Women’s Reading: Theory and Practice”…

On Slowness: A World Building Provocation for Teaching and Research

In the past, I was frustrated by how slow my work moved. I was impatient that my critical inquiry, confusion, curiosity forced me to constantly revisit sources, translations, historical contexts. Market pressures to publish and produce (a talk, an article, a dissertation, a book, teaching, digital resources) with the promise of professional security perpetuated a…

Teaching Resources

Feminist Decolonial Futures: Tactics of Teaching Digital Humanities [New Publication]

Link to Publication on Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy: https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/read/feminist-decolonial-futures-tactics-teaching-digital-humanities/section/7ec4034b-77d8-4722-9ab1-e63b8e6e0aef Excerpt: “This piece is part of a commitment to sharing and creating human communities of care alongside the materialist structures of support that constrain the everyday, such as time and resources. Interwoven with feminist and decolonial praxis, this piece includes a collection of critical…

[TEACHING] On Digital Teaching During and After COVID-19

On November 9, 2020 I was invited to speak on the topic of digital teaching as part of the History Department, Center for Digital Scholarship, and 21st Century PhD Series at Brown University. The talk was well attended on Zoom from faculty, staff, and students from all over campus. I talk through concrete activities, tools,…

Translating Across Time and Space: Film Screening, Artist Talk, and Creative Translation Activity at Harvard

I was invited to speak at an innovative event on translation and creative expression organized by the scholar Catherine H. Nguyen from the Committee on Degrees in History and Literature and the Committee on Ethnicity, Migration, and Rights at Harvard University. Together with poet-scholar Quan Tran, we shared our scholarship and arts practice. I spoke…

  • New Book: Bibliotactics (UC Press 2026)
  • Research
  • Book Reviews
  • Digital Humanities
  • Abridged CV
  • Art Practice & Community Work
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