Set within Professor Nicolas Weber’s forthcoming book "Forbidden Voices, Silenced Memory: The Making of a Cham Century", this talk explores one of its central sources: a 19th-century Cham verse narrative known as The Rhyme of Looking Forward. As one of fifteen texts featured in the project, the narrative is read as a “living archive”—a body of poetic memory that restores Cham perspectives to the historical landscape of modern Southeast Asia. Through its lines, generations of Cham observers recorded what they witnessed and endured, articulating their experiences of upheaval and their interpretations of regional transformation across the 19th and 20th centuries.

Can a Single Photograph End a War? This conversation brings together Kim Phúc—the central figure in one of the most iconic photographs of the twentieth century—and those who witnessed and documented the moment that changed how the world saw war. Taken on June 8, 1972, in Trảng Bàng, Vietnam, Nick Út’s Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph captured the aftermath of a napalm attack, freezing in time the human cost of conflict. Through reflections from Kim Phúc and fellow speakers, the discussion considers the enduring life of this image: how it shaped global perceptions of the Vietnam War, influenced anti-war sentiment, and continues to resonate in contemporary conversations about violence, memory, and reconciliation. Moving beyond the photograph itself, the panel explores the broader power of visual media in constructing historical memory, as well as the long personal and collective processes of survival, healing, and advocacy that follow such moments. Kim Phúc Phan Thị is known worldwide as “The Girl in the Picture” or the “Napalm Girl.” At the age of nine, she was captured in Nick Út’s 1972 photograph, running down a road in Trảng Bàng after a napalm attack burned her clothing and skin. The image became a global symbol of the brutality of war. Today, she serves as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and is the founder of The KIM Foundation International, which supports child victims of war, violence, and poverty. She is also the author of Fire Road, a memoir translated into multiple languages. Nick Út joined the Associated Press in 1965 after his brother—also a photojournalist—was killed while covering the Vietnam War. His work documenting conflicts across Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos earned him both the Pulitzer Prize and World Press Photo of the Year for his 1972 photograph The Terror of War (commonly known as “Napalm Girl”). Beyond capturing the image, Út rushed Kim Phúc to the hospital, beginning a lifelong friendship. He was wounded three times during the war and remains one of the youngest recipients of the Pulitzer Prize. After 1975, Út continued his career with the AP in Japan and later Los Angeles, where he covered major events ranging from wildfires and civil unrest to the O.J. Simpson trial. In recognition of his contributions to photojournalism, he was inducted into the Leica Hall of Fame in 2012. Following his retirement in 2017 after more than five decades with the AP, he has continued documenting global cultures and landscapes while teaching and exhibiting his work. Fox Butterfield reported for The New York Times in Vietnam from 1971 until the end of the war in 1975, when he was evacuated from Saigon. He was present in Trảng Bàng on June 8, 1972, and reported on the napalm attack that injured Kim Phúc. Butterfield was part of the New York Times team awarded the Pulitzer Prize for publishing the Pentagon Papers. His international reporting career included postings in Taiwan, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Beijing, where he opened the paper’s bureau in 1979 following the normalization of U.S.–China relations. A graduate of Harvard University in Chinese history, Butterfield later authored China: Alive in the Bitter Sea, which received the National Book Award. His subsequent works examine themes of violence, family, and social inheritance in the United States. He currently lives in Portland, Oregon. This event is presented as part of the Legacies of the Vietnam War 75th Anniversary series and the Global Asia Film Series, with support from the Mach Family Gift for Global Vietnamese Studies. It is co-sponsored by the Columbia Journalism School, the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, SIPA’s Technology, Media, and Communications program, and NYSEAN.

What Endures After War? What are the long-term consequences of Agent Orange, napalm, and other explosive ordnance across Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam? How have these weapons continued to shape landscapes, communities, and everyday life long after the wars have ended? And what lessons can be drawn from these histories as we think about repair, responsibility, and the future? This panel brings together leading voices with deep, first-hand knowledge of the enduring legacies of war. Through their perspectives, the discussion moves beyond historical events to examine the ongoing human, environmental, and political impacts—and the efforts to confront and address them today. George Black is a British-born author and journalist and the author of eight books spanning subjects from the Chinese democracy movement to the exploration of the American West and the wars against Plains Indians. His most recent book, The Long Reckoning: A Story of War, Peace, and Redemption in Vietnam (Knopf, 2023), examines the enduring aftermath of the Vietnam War. He is currently working on a history of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. His award-winning long-form journalism has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and numerous other publications. He lives in New York City with his wife, Anne Nelson, an author, playwright, and research scholar at Columbia University. Elizabeth Becker, an award-winning journalist for The Washington Post and The New York Times, began her career reporting on the war in Cambodia and its aftermath under the Khmer Rouge. She interviewed Pol Pot in his final days in power and later testified as an expert witness at the Cambodian genocide tribunal. She is the author of six books, including the widely regarded When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution, and most recently You Don’t Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War, which received both the Goldsmith Book Prize and the Sperber Book Prize. Sera Koulabdara is the CEO of Legacies of War, a U.S.-based international advocacy and education organization addressing the ongoing impacts of war in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, including unexploded ordnance (UXO) removal and victim assistance. In January 2023, she was unanimously elected Chair of the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines and the Cluster Munition Coalition, becoming the first BIPOC, millennial, and individual with lived experience from an affected country to hold the role. A leading voice in mine action, her work has been featured in USA Today, The Washington Post, NBC, and Responsible Statecraft, among others. Peter L. W. Osnos covered Vietnam for The Washington Post from 1970 to 1973 and has spent more than five decades writing, editing, and publishing on the subject. He will soon publish LBJ and McNamara: The Vietnam Partnership Destined to Fail, drawing on extensive collaboration with Robert McNamara during the writing of In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, as well as additional original material. This event is presented with support from the Mach Family Gift for Global Vietnamese Studies and is part of the Legacies of the Vietnam War 75th Anniversary series and the Global Asia Film Series. It is co-sponsored by the Columbia Journalism School, the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, SIPA’s Technology, Media, and Communications program, and NYSEAN.

How Did Vietnam Transform War Reporting? How did the realities of the Vietnam War reshape the way wars are reported? In what ways have those changes influenced generations of journalists since? And what lessons from Vietnam continue to shape how conflicts are covered today? This panel brings together veteran war correspondents Peter Arnett, Fox Butterfield, Edith Lederer, and Nancy Trieu Giang Bui to reflect on the evolution of war reporting—from Vietnam to the present. Drawing on firsthand experience, the speakers examine the challenges, ethical tensions, and defining moments that transformed journalism in times of conflict. The discussion considers not only how war reporting has changed, but also the enduring role of journalism in shaping public understanding—and how the lessons of Vietnam continue to inform the work of today’s correspondents. Peter Arnett is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist whose career spans five decades of reporting on wars and global crises. Born in New Zealand, he began his career in print journalism across New Zealand, Australia, and Thailand before joining the Associated Press in 1961. Early in his career, he gained recognition for his daring coverage of a coup in Laos, famously swimming across the Mekong River to file stories during a media blackout. Arnett’s extensive reporting on the Vietnam War—much of it from the front lines—earned him international acclaim. Historian David Halberstam once described him as “the best reporter of the Vietnam War,” noting his unmatched proximity to combat and willingness to take risks. In 1966, Arnett received the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage. Later, he transitioned to television journalism, joining CNN in 1981 and pioneering live war reporting during the Gulf War, including coverage of the bombing of Baghdad and an interview with Saddam Hussein. His work helped define the era of 24-hour news and demonstrated the power of live broadcast in shaping global perception. Over the course of his career, Arnett received numerous honors, including a Prime Time Emmy for his Gulf War reporting and multiple lifetime achievement awards. In 2006, he was named an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in recognition of his contributions to journalism. Fox Butterfield served as a correspondent for The New York Times in Vietnam from 1971 until the final days of the war in April 1975, when he was evacuated from Saigon. On June 8, 1972, he was present in Trảng Bàng and witnessed the napalm attack that led to the now-iconic image of nine-year-old Kim Phúc running down the road. He reported on the event for The New York Times. Butterfield was also part of the team awarded the Pulitzer Prize for publishing the Pentagon Papers. His international reporting career took him to Taiwan, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Beijing, where he opened the paper’s bureau in 1979 following the normalization of U.S.–China relations. A graduate of Harvard University in Chinese history, he later authored China: Alive in the Bitter Sea, which won the National Book Award. He has also written All God’s Children, a study of generational violence in Harlem, and In My Father’s House, which examines patterns of incarceration within an American family. He currently lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife, Elizabeth Mehren, a former correspondent for The Los Angeles Times. This event is presented with support from the Mach Family Gift for Global Vietnamese Studies and is part of the Legacies of the Vietnam War 75th Anniversary series and the Global Asia Film Series. It is co-sponsored by the Columbia Journalism School, the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, SIPA’s Technology, Media, and Communications program, and NYSEAN.

This mini-lecture features a conversation with author Lan Cao on the complexities of Vietnamese American identity in the aftermath of war, displacement, and resettlement. Drawing from her literary work and personal experience, Cao reflects on how memory, loss, and historical rupture shape diasporic subjectivity across generations. The discussion examines the tension between assimilation and cultural continuity, as well as the ways in which Vietnamese American identity is continually reconfigured through language, storytelling, and lived experience. Framed within broader questions of postwar history and migration, the conversation offers insight into how identity is not fixed, but negotiated across time, place, and narrative. Lan Cao was born in Saigon, Vietnam, and came to the United States as a refugee in 1975. As a child growing up in war, she found comfort in the stories of One Thousand and One Nights, drawn to the idea that storytelling itself could be a means of survival. In the United States, she again turned to literature as a source of grounding, engaging deeply with works such as A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, as well as the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop, T.S. Eliot, and Adrienne Rich. Her path as a writer took shape during her time at Mount Holyoke College, where reading Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye proved formative. Lan Cao gained widespread critical acclaim with her debut novel Monkey Bridge (Viking, 1997). Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times noted that Cao “has not only made an impressive debut, but joined authors such as Salman Rushdie and Bharati Mukherjee in mapping the state of exile and its elusive geographies of loss and hope.” She is also the author of The Lotus and the Storm (Viking Penguin, 2015) and co-author, with Harlan Margaret Van Cao, of Family in Six Tones (Viking Penguin, 2020).

Can cinema remember what history forgets? This mini-lecture brings together filmmakers Phillip Noyce (The Quiet American; Rabbit-Proof Fence) and Tony Bui (Three Seasons) in a wide-ranging conversation on war, memory, and the enduring power of cinema. Marking the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, the discussion reflects on how film engages with histories that are often fragmented, contested, or left unspoken. Drawing from their experiences working across Vietnamese and international contexts, Noyce and Bui examine the ethical and artistic challenges of representing war on screen—how narrative, image, and perspective shape what is remembered, and what remains obscured. The conversation considers cinema not simply as representation, but as a form of witnessing—one that can evoke empathy, complicate official histories, and raise moral and political consciousness. Moderated by former U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius, the discussion situates filmmaking within broader questions of memory, reconciliation, and the ongoing afterlives of war, highlighting cinema’s unique capacity to engage both personal and collective histories across time and place.

This mini-lecture features a panel discussion on the material culture of the Republic of Vietnam, with particular attention to women’s fashion and the áo dài during and after the war. Bringing together scholars from multiple disciplines, the conversation explores how clothing operates not only as aesthetic expression but also as a site of memory, identity, and political meaning in times of conflict and transition. Focusing on the áo dài as both a national symbol and a lived cultural form, the panel examines how gender, modernity, and nationhood were negotiated through dress in South Vietnam, and how these meanings have been reinterpreted in diasporic and postwar contexts. The discussion highlights fashion as a lens through which broader historical processes—war, migration, and cultural transformation—can be understood. Chaired by Lien-Hang Nguyen and moderated by Laurel Kendall, the panel features Ann Marie Leshkowich, Martina Nguyen, and Tuong Vu. Together, their perspectives situate material culture within the shifting political and social landscapes of Vietnam and its global diasporas. Co-hosted by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and the Columbia Journalism School, this program was part of the three-day series “50-30: From War to Peace in Vietnam and the United States,” held at Columbia University from April 30 to May 2, 2025.

This is a video recording of a scholarly panel on literary production in the Republic of Vietnam, led by John Phan at Columbia University. Featuring speakers Thuý Đinh, Olga Dror, Trinh Luu, and Nu-Anh Tran, the discussion explores the cultural, historical, and political contexts shaping South Vietnamese literature. Pre-recorded appearances by writers Nhã Ca and Phan Nhật Nam add personal reflections on war, memory, and exile. The panel situates their works within broader intellectual and diasporic conversations. Co-hosted by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and Columbia Journalism School, the event forms part of the “50-30: From War to Peace” series.

This mini-lecture features a conversation with Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai on the role of fiction in articulating Vietnamese diasporic memory beyond the limits of language, nation, and historical narration. Drawing from her novels and lived experience, Quế Mai reflects on how storytelling becomes a space to recover silenced histories, intergenerational trauma, and the emotional afterlives of war. The discussion explores how literature can move across linguistic and cultural boundaries, offering alternative ways of knowing that foreground memory, empathy, and human connection. Situating Vietnamese diasporic writing within broader global contexts, the conversation highlights fiction as both an aesthetic practice and a form of historical engagement.

This lecture explores the extraordinary life of Phạm Xuân Ẩn, a journalist who simultaneously operated as a high-level intelligence agent during the Vietnam War. Drawing on extensive research, the talk traces how Ẩn navigated overlapping worlds, Western media, South Vietnamese society, and revolutionary networks, while maintaining a deeply embedded, dual identity. Rather than portraying espionage as a purely strategic act, the lecture reveals it as a human, relational practice shaped by trust, ambiguity, and long-term commitment. Ẩn’s story opens a window into the complexities of war, information, and allegiance, challenging simplified narratives of loyalty and ideology.

In this engaging lecture, Professor Kathlene Baldanza (Penn State University) explores the long and complex history between Vietnam and China—from ancient cultural exchanges and Chinese imperial rule to modern-day diplomatic tensions. Using maps, artifacts, and historical timelines, she unpacks how conquest, resistance, tribute diplomacy, language, and war have shaped the evolving relationship between the two nations.

This concise and insightful presentation by Professor Duncan McCargo highlights ten essential things to know about Vietnam today. Moving beyond war-time imagery, the talk explores Vietnam’s dynamic economy, effective public services, political system, regional diversity, and complex foreign relations—especially with China and the United States. It also touches on issues like urban traffic, the Vietnamese diaspora, and Vietnam’s growing role in Southeast Asia. Whether you're a student, educator, or simply curious, this talk offers a fresh, balanced perspective on a rapidly changing country.

This conversation explores Song Lang as a landmark work in contemporary Vietnamese cinema, focusing on how the film brings together queer representation, nostalgia, and the cultural memory of cải lương performance. Framed as a discussion with director Leon Le, the event considers the film’s significance within the recent development of Vietnamese film and the changing visibility of LGBTQ identities and same-sex emotional worlds in Vietnamese cultural life. It also highlights Song Lang’s distinctive evocation of 1980s Saigon, its visual and emotional texture, and its refusal of rigid social categories in portraying intimacy and desire.

This mini-lecture introduces the importance of studying Vietnam as a rapidly emerging country with growing global relevance. The speaker highlights how Vietnam, often overlooked in mainstream academic and geopolitical discussions, offers a rich case for understanding contemporary transformations in Asia. The lecture emphasizes Vietnam’s dynamic economic development, its strategic position in regional and global networks, and the ways its historical experiences, such as colonialism, war, and reform, shape its present trajectory. It also underscores the interdisciplinary value of Vietnam Studies, spanning history, politics, culture, and language. Overall, the talk positions Vietnam as a critical site for examining broader questions about development, globalization, and cultural resilience in the 21st century.