Date & Time: Friday, September 26, 2025 | 19:00–21:00 (GMT+7) | 14:00–16:00 (CEST)
Format: Online Talk, Vietnamese Culture Forum Lecture Series
Zoom Access: Webinar ID 671 5459 3815 | Passcode 64908837

Few names provoke as much debate in modern Vietnamese intellectual history as Petrus Trương Vĩnh Ký (1837–1898). Was he a colonial collaborator, a pragmatic intellectual navigating fraught circumstances, or a Catholic patriot committed to a distinct vision of national loyalty? Generations of scholars—Vietnamese and foreign, Marxist and non-Marxist—have offered divergent readings of this complex polymath.

The recent rediscovery of his autobiographical manuscripts offers us a rare opportunity: to examine how Trương chose to narrate his own life, and to reconsider the ways in which later authors refracted and reshaped his self-portrait to serve different cultural and ideological agendas.

In this talk, Dr. Nguyễn Nam (Fulbright University Vietnam) will guide us through the interplay between Trương’s autobiographies and subsequent portrayals, focusing on figures such as Jean Bouchot and Huyền Mặc Đạo Nhân Dương Mạnh Huy.

Dr. Nam argues that none of these accounts—Trương’s included—are neutral reflections. Instead, they are refracted images, shaped by the cultural, political, and intellectual lenses of their times. By situating Trương’s own voice alongside those who appropriated it, this lecture invites us to question not only what we know about Trương Vĩnh Ký but also how historical memory itself is constructed.

This event is part of the Vietnamese Culture Forum Lecture Series, organized as a collaboration between Vietnam Studies Center, Fulbright University Vietnam with the University of Hamburg. The series brings together leading voices in Vietnam Studies to foster dialogue across borders and disciplines.