History – Cindy A. Nguyen

It’s been nearly a year since I’ve stumbled upon the fascinating text Technique du Peuple Annamite (Mechanics and Crafts of the Vietnamese People) (Published 1908-1910). I had hoped to come to more of a conclusive analysis of this text before posting about this project. However like most intellectual projects, more questions and directions for analyses have opened up rather than converged into a neat finality. (See poster of tentative DH research presented at 2015 Berkeley DH Faire)

Thus, I wanted to at least share my initial observations and inquiry into the text. Below is a brief introduction to the text itself and excerpts (Methods & History of the Book) from my essay “On Examining a Peripheral Text: Technique du Peuple Annamite”, which I hope to finish editing and publish here. Additionally, I created a timeline of the life of the text and author below:

Continue reading “Intro to the Henri Oger Project: ‘On Reading a Peripheral Text’”

Recent Talks

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…

The Politics of ‘Good Reading’: Libraries and the Public in Late Colonial Vietnam Talk at Yale

Last spring I was invited to give a virtual talk at Yale’s Southeast Asia Seminar. It was an honor to present a portion of my manuscript Misreading at the Yale seminar, and to be part of the vibrant Q&A, which due to its virtual format spanned institutions and continents. Thank you to Quan Tran for…

Teaching Resources

[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…

Why Study the History of Colonial Indochina? Talk at Middlesex Community College 2020

https://youtu.be/WtddoZpRCMU I recently delivered a talk to 150 college students at Middlesex college through the Asian Studies Development Program. I was encouraged to prepare a talk which spoke to diverse students who might not have a background on Asian history. In preparing for the talk, I took a long time reflecting on the simple question,…