Join us for a presentation by our very own Dr. Martina T. Nguyen, who will discuss her recent book On Our Own Strength: The Self-Reliant Literary Group and Cosmopolitan Nationalism in Late Colonial Vietnam. The talk will take place on Thursday, April 20, 2023, at 12:30 PM, in NVC 12-150.
The Self-Reliant Literary Group (Tự Lực Văn Đoàn) was the most influential intellectual movement in interwar French-occupied Vietnam. The Group’s far-reaching work included applied design, urban reform, fashion, literature, journalism, and cartoons through which they advanced an idea of cosmopolitan nationalism and Vietnamese autonomy that sought a nonviolent middle path between colonialism and anticolonial struggle. This form of cosmopolitan nationalism, Dr. Nguyen argues, proved tremendously popular and profoundly shaped local politics, influencing even rival groups like the newly revived Indochinese Communist Party.
