ASIATIC, VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, DECEMBER 2013 Rabindranath Tagore’s The Home and the World : Story o... more ASIATIC, VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, DECEMBER 2013 Rabindranath Tagore’s The Home and the World : Story of the Failure of the Nationalist Project 1 Chi P. Pham 2 Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences University of California, Riverside, USA Abstract As an intense literary text, The Home and the World could be read in more than one way, and through different interpretations. This paper attempts to compare the novel with early twentieth century Vietnamese novels. The Home and the World is a novel that reads like an allegory on the failure of the Indian nationalist projects, 3 circling around the issues of “Home” versus “World,” tradition versus modernity, created by the active involvement of the colonisers in the cultural, economic and administrative life of the colonised. It could be read as an allegory on the failure of Indian nationalism to accept tradition and modernity, home and the world, concurrently. In addition, the novel offers an alternative nationalist project that could free India f...
This book analyzes why Indians have been made invisible in Vietnamese society and historiography.... more This book analyzes why Indians have been made invisible in Vietnamese society and historiography. It argues that their invisibilization originates in the formulaic metaphor Vietnamese nation-makers have used to portray Indians in their quest for national sovereignty and socialism. The book presents a complex view on colonial legacies in Vietnam, which suggests that Vietnamese nation-makers associate Indians with colonialism and capitalism, ultimately viewed as "non-socialist" and "non-hegemonic" state structures. Furthermore, the book demonstrates how Vietnamese nation-makers achieve the overriding socialist and independent goal of historically differing Indians from Vietnamese nationalisms whilst simultaneously making them invisible. In addition to primary Vietnamese texts, which demonstrate the performativity of language and the Vietnamese traditional belief in writing as a sharp weapon for national and class struggles, the author utilizes interviews with Indians and Vietnamese authorities in charge of managing the Indian population. Bringing to the surface the ways through which Vietnamese intellectuals have invisibilized the Indians for the sake of the visibility of national hegemony and prosperity, this book will be of interest to scholars of Southeast Asian Studies and South Asian Studies, Vietnam Studies, including nation-building, literature, and language.
During the colonial period, particularly in the 1920s, Vietnamese intellectuals frequently debate... more During the colonial period, particularly in the 1920s, Vietnamese intellectuals frequently debated Rabindranath Tagore’s Greater Indian, pan-Asian vision in their political exchanges. Drawing on scholarship on the rise of an Indian Ocean public sphere, this article analyzes periodicals covering Tagore in colonial Vietnam in order to explore alternative and less researched trajectories of contemporary Vietnamese nationalism. Specifically, it examines media coverage of Tagore’s works, ideas, personality, and appearance, and, in particular, his visit to Sài Gòn in 1929, to answer the question of how those depictions reflected and shaped different anticolonial imaginaries and ideological debates at the time. Radical and moderate forms of Vietnamese nationalism reflected both appreciation and criticism of Tagore’s views of Indian nationhood. The engagement of both moderate and radical Vietnamese intellectuals with Tagore’s work was thus an important early moment in the turn of Vietnamese...
Critique of Western depictions and studies of “the East” as orientalism and cultural essentialism... more Critique of Western depictions and studies of “the East” as orientalism and cultural essentialism have been the central point of postcolonial studies. For postcolonial scholars, essentialist orientalist discourse is a type of imperialism; it problematically neglects internal dynamics within vernacular Eastern values and presents Eastern cultures in homogeneous, rigid, and lifeless forms, all in the aim of constructing the East–West divide in which the East is always inferior and the West is always superior. This article complements the postcolonial critique of orientalist discourse by examining two novels published during the colonial time; they are The Juggler by Rachilde (1860–1953) and The Dark Room by R. K. Narayan (1905–2001). Specifically, the article compares domestic spaces described in the two novels in the aim of indicating the failure of Western discourse in presenting the world as open and fluid and in the aim of attending a current turn of the discipline of comparative ...
This paper explores the relationship between literary representation and nationalism in contempor... more This paper explores the relationship between literary representation and nationalism in contemporary Vietnam, a socialist state which has opened up to capitalist forms of economic organization. It asks if Vietnamese literature has changed its political role in the context of Vietnam pursuing policies of economic liberalization, engaging with global capitalist relations and opening to global private capitalist sectors. In other words, the paper asks how national literature, a body of literary works in the Vietnamese language that was historically constructed in anticolonial, anti-imperial terms, has participated in the contemporary cultural, economic and political projects that the Vietnamese state has undertaken in order to retain its socialist and nationalist goals, while practicing transnational negotiation and socialist flexibility. In continuing the tradition of constructing Indian characters as "capitalists" and "foreign invaders," Hồ Anh Thái's writing suggests that the so-called political and economic relaxation of post-reform Vietnam is a strategy for the Vietnamese state to maintain itself on the path of socialism and nationalism. Through its examination of Hồ Anh Thái's novels and short stories, focusing on their construction of Indian characters, the paper argues that socialist realism remains the guiding principle of contemporary Vietnamese literature. The choice of Hồ Anh Thái and his writing about Indians is based on the fact that the author and the Indian setting of his work embody important political and economic characteristics of post-reform Vietnam.
ABSTRACT This paper examines the complex and dynamic dimensions of projects to nationalize the Ma... more ABSTRACT This paper examines the complex and dynamic dimensions of projects to nationalize the Mariamman Hindu temple in Ho Chi Minh City. It aims to show how the reform-era Vietnamese state has consistently used a range of bureaucratic and discursive techniques to construct narrative practices, architectural structures and personnel bodies to transform the Indian temple into part of ‘a socialist state’. These techniques include transnational negotiation and flexibility in Vietnamese socialism. Consequently, the temple now operates along the lines of a civil secular office, following the state’s laws and policies of religious organizations and buildings. A critical and interdisciplinary reading of archival resources, narratives and fieldwork interviews with current and former temple personnel provides core evidence about postcolonial socialist adjustability in the state management of religion in Vietnam since 1986. This argument challenges scholarly perceptions about the resilience of nationalism in Vietnam in its increasingly transnational engagements and within the global market.
As an intense literary text, The Home and the World could be read in more than one way, and throu... more As an intense literary text, The Home and the World could be read in more than one way, and through different interpretations. This paper attempts to compare the novel with early twentieth century Vietnamese novels. The Home and the World is a novel that reads like an allegory on the failure of the Indian nationalist projects, 3 circling around the issues of "Home" versus "World," tradition versus modernity, created by the active involvement of the colonisers in the cultural, economic and administrative life of the colonised. It could be read as an allegory on the failure of Indian nationalism to accept tradition and modernity, home and the world, concurrently. In addition, the novel offers an alternative nationalist project that could free India from its obsession with the colonising powers: true freedom of the nationalist imagination will be gained by going beyond every form of ideological prejudice and separation, and by synthesising every conceivable value that could be useful for the development and maintenance of the nation. And as a concrete example of his alternative nationalist project, Tagore founded Visva Bharati University in Santiniketan in 1921.
ethnicity-based policies, these communities would be the same as we see them today. Would they st... more ethnicity-based policies, these communities would be the same as we see them today. Would they still yearn to belong, and if so, what would they want to belong to?
ASIATIC, VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, DECEMBER 2013 Rabindranath Tagore’s The Home and the World : Story o... more ASIATIC, VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, DECEMBER 2013 Rabindranath Tagore’s The Home and the World : Story of the Failure of the Nationalist Project 1 Chi P. Pham 2 Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences University of California, Riverside, USA Abstract As an intense literary text, The Home and the World could be read in more than one way, and through different interpretations. This paper attempts to compare the novel with early twentieth century Vietnamese novels. The Home and the World is a novel that reads like an allegory on the failure of the Indian nationalist projects, 3 circling around the issues of “Home” versus “World,” tradition versus modernity, created by the active involvement of the colonisers in the cultural, economic and administrative life of the colonised. It could be read as an allegory on the failure of Indian nationalism to accept tradition and modernity, home and the world, concurrently. In addition, the novel offers an alternative nationalist project that could free India f...
This book analyzes why Indians have been made invisible in Vietnamese society and historiography.... more This book analyzes why Indians have been made invisible in Vietnamese society and historiography. It argues that their invisibilization originates in the formulaic metaphor Vietnamese nation-makers have used to portray Indians in their quest for national sovereignty and socialism. The book presents a complex view on colonial legacies in Vietnam, which suggests that Vietnamese nation-makers associate Indians with colonialism and capitalism, ultimately viewed as "non-socialist" and "non-hegemonic" state structures. Furthermore, the book demonstrates how Vietnamese nation-makers achieve the overriding socialist and independent goal of historically differing Indians from Vietnamese nationalisms whilst simultaneously making them invisible. In addition to primary Vietnamese texts, which demonstrate the performativity of language and the Vietnamese traditional belief in writing as a sharp weapon for national and class struggles, the author utilizes interviews with Indians and Vietnamese authorities in charge of managing the Indian population. Bringing to the surface the ways through which Vietnamese intellectuals have invisibilized the Indians for the sake of the visibility of national hegemony and prosperity, this book will be of interest to scholars of Southeast Asian Studies and South Asian Studies, Vietnam Studies, including nation-building, literature, and language.
During the colonial period, particularly in the 1920s, Vietnamese intellectuals frequently debate... more During the colonial period, particularly in the 1920s, Vietnamese intellectuals frequently debated Rabindranath Tagore’s Greater Indian, pan-Asian vision in their political exchanges. Drawing on scholarship on the rise of an Indian Ocean public sphere, this article analyzes periodicals covering Tagore in colonial Vietnam in order to explore alternative and less researched trajectories of contemporary Vietnamese nationalism. Specifically, it examines media coverage of Tagore’s works, ideas, personality, and appearance, and, in particular, his visit to Sài Gòn in 1929, to answer the question of how those depictions reflected and shaped different anticolonial imaginaries and ideological debates at the time. Radical and moderate forms of Vietnamese nationalism reflected both appreciation and criticism of Tagore’s views of Indian nationhood. The engagement of both moderate and radical Vietnamese intellectuals with Tagore’s work was thus an important early moment in the turn of Vietnamese...
Critique of Western depictions and studies of “the East” as orientalism and cultural essentialism... more Critique of Western depictions and studies of “the East” as orientalism and cultural essentialism have been the central point of postcolonial studies. For postcolonial scholars, essentialist orientalist discourse is a type of imperialism; it problematically neglects internal dynamics within vernacular Eastern values and presents Eastern cultures in homogeneous, rigid, and lifeless forms, all in the aim of constructing the East–West divide in which the East is always inferior and the West is always superior. This article complements the postcolonial critique of orientalist discourse by examining two novels published during the colonial time; they are The Juggler by Rachilde (1860–1953) and The Dark Room by R. K. Narayan (1905–2001). Specifically, the article compares domestic spaces described in the two novels in the aim of indicating the failure of Western discourse in presenting the world as open and fluid and in the aim of attending a current turn of the discipline of comparative ...
This paper explores the relationship between literary representation and nationalism in contempor... more This paper explores the relationship between literary representation and nationalism in contemporary Vietnam, a socialist state which has opened up to capitalist forms of economic organization. It asks if Vietnamese literature has changed its political role in the context of Vietnam pursuing policies of economic liberalization, engaging with global capitalist relations and opening to global private capitalist sectors. In other words, the paper asks how national literature, a body of literary works in the Vietnamese language that was historically constructed in anticolonial, anti-imperial terms, has participated in the contemporary cultural, economic and political projects that the Vietnamese state has undertaken in order to retain its socialist and nationalist goals, while practicing transnational negotiation and socialist flexibility. In continuing the tradition of constructing Indian characters as "capitalists" and "foreign invaders," Hồ Anh Thái's writing suggests that the so-called political and economic relaxation of post-reform Vietnam is a strategy for the Vietnamese state to maintain itself on the path of socialism and nationalism. Through its examination of Hồ Anh Thái's novels and short stories, focusing on their construction of Indian characters, the paper argues that socialist realism remains the guiding principle of contemporary Vietnamese literature. The choice of Hồ Anh Thái and his writing about Indians is based on the fact that the author and the Indian setting of his work embody important political and economic characteristics of post-reform Vietnam.
ABSTRACT This paper examines the complex and dynamic dimensions of projects to nationalize the Ma... more ABSTRACT This paper examines the complex and dynamic dimensions of projects to nationalize the Mariamman Hindu temple in Ho Chi Minh City. It aims to show how the reform-era Vietnamese state has consistently used a range of bureaucratic and discursive techniques to construct narrative practices, architectural structures and personnel bodies to transform the Indian temple into part of ‘a socialist state’. These techniques include transnational negotiation and flexibility in Vietnamese socialism. Consequently, the temple now operates along the lines of a civil secular office, following the state’s laws and policies of religious organizations and buildings. A critical and interdisciplinary reading of archival resources, narratives and fieldwork interviews with current and former temple personnel provides core evidence about postcolonial socialist adjustability in the state management of religion in Vietnam since 1986. This argument challenges scholarly perceptions about the resilience of nationalism in Vietnam in its increasingly transnational engagements and within the global market.
As an intense literary text, The Home and the World could be read in more than one way, and throu... more As an intense literary text, The Home and the World could be read in more than one way, and through different interpretations. This paper attempts to compare the novel with early twentieth century Vietnamese novels. The Home and the World is a novel that reads like an allegory on the failure of the Indian nationalist projects, 3 circling around the issues of "Home" versus "World," tradition versus modernity, created by the active involvement of the colonisers in the cultural, economic and administrative life of the colonised. It could be read as an allegory on the failure of Indian nationalism to accept tradition and modernity, home and the world, concurrently. In addition, the novel offers an alternative nationalist project that could free India from its obsession with the colonising powers: true freedom of the nationalist imagination will be gained by going beyond every form of ideological prejudice and separation, and by synthesising every conceivable value that could be useful for the development and maintenance of the nation. And as a concrete example of his alternative nationalist project, Tagore founded Visva Bharati University in Santiniketan in 1921.
ethnicity-based policies, these communities would be the same as we see them today. Would they st... more ethnicity-based policies, these communities would be the same as we see them today. Would they still yearn to belong, and if so, what would they want to belong to?
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