Session 319: Digital Horizons of Vietnam Studies 

Friday, March 13, 2026 | 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM PDT
 Vancouver Convention Centre (VCC), Room 115

At the 2026 Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference in Vancouver, Digitizing Việt Nam will stand at the center of a major roundtable on digital scholarship in the field: Session 319: Digital Horizons of Vietnam Studies: Collections, Collaborations, Creative Applications.

Organized and chaired by Cindy Nguyen (UCLA), the roundtable brings together leading scholars working across institutions and continents to reflect on how Vietnam Studies is being reshaped through digital collections, transnational collaboration, and experimental methodologies.

Over the past decades, Vietnam Studies has undergone profound transformation—expanding interdisciplinarily, incorporating multilingual scholarship, and deepening engagement with Vietnam and its global diaspora. As the field marks fifty years since the end of the Vietnam War/Second Indochina War/American War, it is also entering a new phase defined by digital infrastructures and public-facing scholarship.

This roundtable will focus on specific case studies and live demonstrations, emphasizing collaboration, methodological innovation, and training the next generation of scholars.

Featured Projects

• George Dutton (UCLA) will discuss the digitization of the Đại Nam Nhất Thống Chí gazetteer, addressing key challenges in OCR for historical Vietnamese and Sino-Nôm materials, textual annotation strategies, and ensuring cross-disciplinary usability of large textual corpora.
  
   
• Nguyễn Tô Lan (Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences) will present the Vietnam Buddhist Resource Digital Repository, a scholar-led initiative dedicated to collecting, digitizing, and providing free global access to resources on Vietnamese Buddhism, with particular emphasis on Sino-Nôm texts. The project models sustainable, open-access infrastructure rooted in scholarly collaboration.
  
   
• Vy Cao (Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History) will introduce the DISTAM-funded “RAG’it” project, applying Retrieval-Augmented Generation techniques to trace the development of neologisms across early twentieth-century Vietnamese periodicals such as Nam Phong and Tân Việt. The project demonstrates how AI tools can illuminate intellectual change within print culture.
  
   
• Cindy Nguyen (UCLA) will present her “Social Worlds” project, drawing from a colonial multilingual Vietnamese encyclopedia to show how combining close reading with computational methods—such as vector space modeling—allows researchers and students to rethink interpretation as a core scholarly act.
  
   
• John Phan (Columbia University) will present Digitizing Vietnam, a collaboration between Columbia University and Fulbright University Vietnam. The initiative is developing a digital hub for Vietnam Studies that integrates digitized collections, bibliographic tools, and pedagogical materials, expanding global access to Vietnamese historical resources.
  
   

Rather than traditional formal papers, the session is structured around short presentations and demonstrations, prioritizing engaged discussion, collective brainstorming, and the formation of new collaborations.

Additional Highlights in Vietnam Studies at AAS 2026

• Roundtable Tribute: The Life and Work of Gerard Sasges
   Scheduled for Friday morning at 9:00 AM, this roundtable will honor the esteemed historian’s intellectual legacy. Appreciation is extended to Peter Zinoman for organizing this tribute at the eleventh hour.
   

• VSG-Sponsored Panel (Session 1110):
   Constructing Socialism: State-Building and Governance in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 1954–1975
   Taking place Sunday morning, this panel will revisit foundational questions about governance and socialist state formation in the DRV. Thanks are due to the Vietnam Studies Group (VSG) selection committee and organizers for advancing this important conversation.

   

• Session 621: Knowledge at the Margins
   Scheduled for Saturday morning, this panel—composed primarily of scholars from Southwest Jiaotong University (PRC)—will examine reading communities and the social life of texts in nineteenth-century Vietnam. It may represent one of the first Vietnam-focused AAS panels centered on scholars from a single Chinese institution, marking an important moment in the internationalization of Vietnam Studies. Another panel with participants largely from France further reflects the growing global scope of the field.

   

• Session 114: Archives and Data in Dialogue (Thursday evening), organized by French early-career scholars, exploring multilingual archives, postcolonial methodology, and digital research practices in Vietnamese Studies.

As AAS 2026 approaches, Vietnam Studies will demonstrate both intellectual continuity and methodological transformation. For Digitizing Việt Nam, Session 319 will serve not only as a presentation platform but as a space to advance collaborative digital infrastructure—shaping how Vietnamese history, texts, and ideas will be accessed, studied, and taught in the years to come.

👉 Find the complete list of sessions and abstracts here.

• Ha Noi, Viet Nam
• June 5–6, 2026

The Vietnam Center & Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive and the Institute for Peace & Conflict (Texas Tech University), in collaboration with the University of Social Sciences and Humanities – Vietnam National University, Ha Noi, are pleased to announce an international conference on history, archives, and U.S.–Vietnam relations.

Conference Themes
The conference welcomes interdisciplinary perspectives on U.S.–Vietnam relations, including diplomatic, political, economic, social, cultural, and military dimensions — from early encounters in the late 18th century, through major wars and conflicts, to normalization and today’s Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Particular attention is given to research engaging archival sources and archival methodologies.

Who Should Submit

• Scholars and researchers
• Veterans and wartime participants
• Graduate and undergraduate students

Format & Publication

• Individual papers or pre-organized panels
• 90-minute sessions (60 minutes presentations + 30 minutes discussion)
• All presentations will be video recorded and made publicly available
• Selected papers will be published in the conference proceedings

Proposal Deadline: March 1, 2026
250-word abstract + 2-page CV/resume
Submit to: usvietnamconference2026@gmail.com

Post-Conference Orientation Tour
A post-conference academic tour to Ha Noi, Ha Long Bay, Hue, Da Nang, and Ho Chi Minh City is planned (limited capacity, self-funded).

📩 For inquiries: usvietnamconference2026@gmail.com

👉 Learn more about the conference: https://tinyurl.com/us-vn-conference

About the Author

Sara Ann Swenson is an Assistant Professor in Religion at Dartmouth College, where she focuses on contemporary Buddhism in Vietnam. She holds a PhD and MPhil in Religion from Syracuse University, an MA in Comparative Religion from Iliff School of Theology, and a BA in English from the University of Minnesota Duluth. Swenson’s work bridges anthropology, religious studies, and social theory, offering a nuanced view of the role of Buddhism in modern Vietnam.

About the Book

In Near Light We Shine: Buddhist Charity in Urban Vietnam (Oxford University Press, 2025, part of the AAR Academy Series), Sara Ann Swenson presents one of the first major ethnographic studies on Vietnamese Buddhism, delving into how grassroots Buddhist charity movements have shaped the urban landscape of modern Vietnam. This pioneering book offers a new perspective on the intersection of religion, migration, urban development, and humanitarian efforts. Through detailed ethnographic research and interviews, Swenson brings to light the diverse and often marginalized voices involved in these charity movements, offering readers an unprecedented view of Buddhist charity in Vietnam.

As Vietnam's rapid urbanization strains public infrastructure, particularly in urban centers like Ho Chi Minh City, religious communities have stepped in to meet critical social service needs. Volunteers, often led by Buddhist practitioners, have adapted Buddhist teachings and practices to organize charity events that support the most vulnerable: low-income laborers, elderly women, migrant workers, and queer individuals. In Near Light We Shine, Swenson examines why people join these grassroots movements, exploring the philosophical and social dynamics that drive this kind of charity.

Swenson’s book draws from two years of ethnographic research in Ho Chi Minh City, offering deep insight into the intersection of Buddhism and charity and providing an analysis of the diverse motivations of volunteers and recipients alike. The book explores the tensions between different approaches to charity and altruism, revealing the philosophical and ontological disputes over what constitutes "true charity" in a rapidly changing society. Volunteers promote Buddhist cosmologies that are at times traditional, pro-socialist, skeptical, queer, and modern, shaping not just how they engage with charity, but how they view their role in transforming society.

By examining these movements through a Buddhist lens, Swenson explores how religion, charity, and social networks come together to create moral communities that address the complex issues brought on by urban migration and development in Vietnam. Near Light We Shine highlights how Buddhist charity is not just about giving but is deeply embedded in the creation of social meaning and the negotiation of power dynamics in contemporary Vietnam.

Key Themes and Insights

• Grassroots Buddhist Charity: The book explores how grassroots charity movements adapt Buddhist teachings to meet urban Vietnam’s growing humanitarian needs. These volunteers work to provide vital services like road construction, subsidized medicines, and food distribution.
  
   
• Philosophical and Ontological Debates: Swenson delves into the different philosophical underpinnings of charity, highlighting both the conflicts and collaborations between traditional Buddhist values, pro-socialist ideals, queer identities, and scientific approaches to charity.
  
   
• Diverse Perspectives on Altruism: The book gives voice to a range of marginalized Buddhist practitioners, including day laborers, queer men, elderly women, Buddhist nuns, and urban migrants, exploring how these groups engage with charity and the Buddhist tradition in deeply personal and transformative ways.
  
   
• Buddhism as Adaptable Resource: Near Light We Shine demonstrates how Buddhism functions as an adaptable resource for moral community building, both in the context of Vietnam’s urban development and in the global landscape of grassroots humanitarian work.
  
   

Why Read This Book?

Near Light We Shine is not just a study of charity; it is a profound exploration of how religious practices are reshaped by social, cultural, and political forces in a rapidly modernizing society. This book will appeal to scholars of religion, anthropology, Southeast Asian studies, and anyone interested in the intersection of religion, charity, and social justice in the context of urban Vietnam. Swenson’s ethnographic approach sheds light on the lived experiences of marginalized individuals within these movements, offering a more holistic understanding of Buddhist charity as a force for social transformation.

The book is now available from Oxford University Press. Pre-order your copy and engage with the first comprehensive study of grassroots Buddhist charity in Vietnam, with an exclusive 30% discount using code: AUFLY30.