USU English Prof Rides the 'Tale' of the Dragon in Vietnam

Charles Waugh, visiting assistant professor of English at Utah State University, presents Riding the ‘Tales’ of the Dragon; Finding out in Vietnam what it Means to Be an American. The event takes place Wednesday, Jan. 18, at 12:30 p.m. in the USU Haight Alumni Center and is part of the Department of English Speakers Series. It is free and open to the public.

 

Waugh recently returned from a Fulbright Fellowship at Vietnam National University. His task there, he said, was to help develop the undergraduate and graduate program in American Studies. It was his second trip to Vietnam.

 

“I studied there in 1996 as part of an ongoing sister university project between the University of Oregon and VNU,” Waugh said.

 

Waugh’s research interests lie in writing about perceptions of Vietnam from the war to present times.

 

“I want to address the ongoing consequences of the war, understand what globalization and joining the world economy means for Vietnamese culture, and improve the cultural and political exchange between our two countries,” he said. “Americans tend to think of Vietnam as the war and only in terms of our own lost soldiers and innocence.”

 

Waugh wants Americans to understand that the war had long lasting and devastating effects on the Vietnamese, including the fact the country has only in the last 10 years begun to engage with the rest of the world, he said.

 

“This sudden engagement with globalization and the world cultural machine has meant a lot of unpredictable changes in Vietnamese culture,” Waugh said. “It is a vibrant place that has put the war behind them.

 

“Writing politically and ecologically motivated work that actually succeeds aesthetically isn’t easy to pull off, but that’s the challenge I’ve set for myself.”

 

Waugh said the English department’s creative writing program, because of its connection to ecological and social issues, is a great place for students to learn how to put what’s important to them into a vehicle that will reach people.