Bücher der Reihe Global Vietnam: Across Time, Space and Community

This edited book examines how South Vietnam¿s (formerly the Republic of Vietnam 1955-1975) literary and journalistic writers were perceived and - potentially - influenced by Western thought, led by thinkers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Franz Kafka, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann, Martin Heidegger, Hermann Hesse, Edmund Husserl, Stefan Zweig, Graham Greene, and Somerset Maugham. The book reveals the dynamism and diversity of Western thought in individual literary texts, as well as among the authors themselves. The volume considers how writers and their texts engaged with issues that are socially, culturally, politically, and philosophically significant to Vietnam and beyond, past and present. This approach to South Vietnam¿s literary and journalistic tradition enables an alternative plural, inclusive view of the significance of these texts, which are shown to be neither exclusively anti-Communist nor ¿bourgeois individualist¿ (cá nhân ti¿u t¿ s¿n), as they have so often been interpreted both in and outside of Vietnam. Such an interpretation problematically retains the marginal position of South Vietnam¿s literature in mainstream Vietnamese literature, and in the literatures of the host countries where these Vietnamese authors have migrated, settled, and continued to write following the 'Fall of Saigon'. This volume presents itself as a key text for those studying Asian and postcolonial literatures, as well as scholars in the humanities researching Vietnam ¿ its history, politics, society, and culture.

This book recounts the understanding of three Vietnamese children and their mothers¿ experiences as they navigate being newcomers to Canada. It explores the cultural, traditional, familial, intergenerational, personal, social, institutional, political, historical, community, and linguistic narratives shaping Vietnamese children and mothers as they compose their lives. The author employs narrative inquiry as a methodological approach, beginning by positioning herself through her narrative beginnings, delving deep into philosophical and methodological underpinnings. The author lays out the three child¿mother pairs¿ experiences as they negotiated a new culture in Canada, particularly the spaces of home, schools, and communities. The book brings a holistic and relational way of understanding familial curriculum-making as support for children¿s school curriculum-making and for the ways in which Vietnamese families¿ sustain their ongoing life making. It also looks at the influence of the homeland¿s language, culture, and educational traditions. Through the complex interplay between the children and mothers¿ narratives and the writer¿s own stories, this book discusses multiperspectival and multidimensional ways of supporting Vietnamese newcomers and other ¿arrivals¿ composing their lives in similar landscapes. The book is relevant to educators, researchers, cultural brokers, and policymakers, opening avenues for understanding cultural ethics within the relational ethics of narrative inquiry, as well as familial narratives in relation to institutional and social narratives.