Organizer: Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, Cornell University

Type/Location: In person / Ithaca, NY

Description:

Hosted by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University, Kelly Nguyen, Assistant Professor of Classics at UCLA, will discuss the experiences of Vietnamese refugees by analyzing the intersectional works of two contemporary writers, Linda Lê and Ocean Vuong, and how their work challenges the “good refugee” myth.

Kelly Nguyen received her Ph.D. in Ancient History from Brown University where she was a Graduate Fellow at the Cogut Institute for the Humanities. She was most recently a University of California Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Rhetoric at UC - Berkeley. At Stanford, she is affiliated with the Department of Classics, the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and the Stanford Archaeology Center.

As a refugee with fluency in Vietnamese and French and as a classicist with training in archaeology and ancient history, she approaches the study of the ancient Mediterranean through a comparative and global context. Her research is driven by questions involving histories of empire, forced displacement and race and ethnicity. Her current book manuscript, tentatively titled Vercingetorix in Vietnam: Race, Empire and the Classical Tradition, is the first major project to examine classical reception in the Vietnamese diaspora. Drawing on critical race theory, critical refugee studies, and queer of color critique, she explores the racialization of classical antiquity by the French and American empires and the subsequent anti-imperial reappropriation by Vietnamese communities from the mid-19th century to the present. Her work has been recognized by several prestigious awards, including the Women's Classical Caucus' Pre-doctoral Award, the Erich S. Gruen Prize, and the John. J. Winkler Memorial Prize.

She is a Co-Founder of the Asian and Asian American Classical Caucus (AAACC), which was recently awarded the Professional Equity Award by the Women's Classical Caucus for their robust community building programming, including their international mentorship program. She also has served on the Board of Directors for the Center for Southeast Asians, a local nonprofit in Rhode Island, for the past four years and has consulted on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives both in and beyond academic contexts.