International Scholars Meet at Conference on Vietnamese Studies in Hanoi

by Helen Chauncey and Hy Van Luong

The International Conference on Vietnamese Studies in Hanoi in July 1998 was the largest international gathering to date of academic researchers on Vietnam. The National University of Hanoi and the National Center for Social Sciences and the Humanities in Vietnam co-sponsored the conference. Professor Phan Huy Le was the main organizer, and Professor Le Huu Tang of NCSSH was the co-organizer.

The Ford Foundation provided the main funding for the conference. Support also came from French and Japanese sources.

Approximately 450 papers were scheduled for presentation in 15 panels, and 10 speakers (including Keith Taylor from Cornell University) presented their papers in plenary sessions. Panel topics ranged from language, culture, history, to economy, the environment, rural Vietnam, gender, and social issues.

The number of paper proposals far exceeded the organizers original estimate, and many proposals by Vietnamese scholars could not be accepted due to limited panel space. All the papers were selected by the Vietnamese organizing committee.

Due to the size of the conference, its venue  was the National  Assembly conference hall in Ba Dinh Square in Hanoi. Prime Minister Phan Van Khai gave the opening speech. Party Secretary Le Kha Phieu met with a smaller group of international scholars during the conference.

The organization of the conference was a major logistical undertaking. It took place thanks to Professor Le's and other organizational staff members' tremendous energy and efforts. The Hanoi conference succeeded in facilitating contact among scholars working in different intellectual traditions and from different parts of the world.

Despite political sensitivities in the host country, all paper givers from outside Vietnam were issued visas for the conference. This was a major organizational success. (However, political sensitivities seem to have played a major role in the only partial translation of some papers by international scholars into Vietnamese and in the organizers' very-last-minute decision to drop from the plenary session speaker list a prominent Vietnam specialist whom they had invited to speak in a plenary session.)

A number of well-known Vietnam specialists attended the conference, while a fair number of equally well-known people from both Vietnam and other countries could not.

As an intellectual forum, the International Conference on Vietnamese Studies in Hanoi had more modest results partly

because the quality of the papers was mixed. Furthermore, as each panel had 30 papers, it was too big in many cases to achieve some coherence among the papers. Simultaneous translation was provided for some panels, and not for some others, practically cutting down the time in the latter by half and reducing the time for each paper in those panels to at most 15 minutes (excluding interpretation, but including discussion time). Because so little time could be allowed for presentation and discussion, it was relatively easy for establishment scholars to control discussion.

The July 1998 conference was valuable in highlighting the potential of Vietnamese Studies. What form follow-up takes remains to be seen. Draft resolutions included in the final plenary session were not voted upon or officially approved in a fashion that provides specific directions or implies some obligations from the participants or funders.

In order to strengthen international communication in Vietnamese Studies, resolutions introduced at the final plenary session called for a newsletter, which would be particularly useful for researchers not yet having e-mail and internet access. Several Vietnam studies groups, including VSG, Euroviet, and the Australians, have electronic mailing lists of their members.

At the moment, for the VSG, the practices of communicating through those e-mail lists are rather weak. One suggestion is that a simple DOS-based form be developed to be sent to all members, perhaps once every six months, and at a minimum once a year. The form, in addition to name and contact data, would ask for the status of any new or on-going research, training, or development project, solicit suggestions for valuable readings or resources, and provide space for any additional field-related news. The idea is to keep the form short enough to encourage members to respond.

Each group (VSG, Euroviet, the Australians, the Japanese Vietnamese Studies Association, for example) would provide a summary update to be passed onto the email lists of other groups. We would very much like to include Russian contacts, such as the Centre for Vietnamese Studies and the Institute of Asia and Africa at Moscow State University. We note that it would be useful to include as well updates from other types of organizations, such as relevant foundations, NGOs, and where possible, bilateral aid programs. While six-month updates from these types of groups are probably unrealistic, annual updates might be feasible. Whenever and however possible, we would obviously like to include scholars in Vietnam in the semi-annual or annual information updates.

Finally, resolutions introduced in the final plenary session also called for establishing a monograph series in Vietnamese studies, for strengthening the teaching of Vietnamese outside Vietnam, and for working on a good textbook on Vietnamese as a second language to students of Vietnamese origin. The monograph series was briefly discussed in the Roundtable preceding the final session to which the conference organizers specifically invited about 50 participants in their individual capacities. However, the resolutions on the teaching of Vietnamese language and on a Vietnamese language textbook were never discussed at this roundtable, as worthy of support as they might be.

In summary, the International Conference on Vietnamese Studies in Hanoi in July 1998 highlighted the potential of Vietnamese studies and facilitated contact among Vietnam academic specialists working in different traditions and different parts of the world. Certain organizational difficulties were inevitable for such a major undertaking, but the organizers and the funders did a tremendous job and deserved sincere thanks for helping to strengthen the international academic community in Vietnamese Studies.

Hy Van Luong (vanluong@chass.utoronto.ca) is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto

Helen R. Chauncey (hrc@uvic.ca) is Associate Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Victoria.

This article has been edited from one posted to the home page of the Vietnam Studies Group. For additional information about the conference and academic work on Vietnam, look at http://weber.u.washington.edu/~judithh/vsg.htm. A complete set of conference papers may be read at the headquarters of the Ford Foundation in Hanoi, but they are not able to mail copies.

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