"Female Readership of Modern Vietnamese Fiction: Its Formation and Social Effects during the First Three Decades of the 20th Century"
Nam Ngyuen, Harvard-Yenching Institute

The first three decades of the 20th century stand out as a crucial transitional period in the history of modern Vietnamese literature. During this time, not only can we see the growth of Vietnamese fiction, but we can also witness the formation of its female readership. The growing development of this readership can best be understood by exploring a series of related questions: Who were they and what was their educational background? What types of fiction did they read? Was their reading monitored and guided? and if so, by whom? Answers to such questions help to shed light on the social and intellectual status of Vietnamese women in the historical context of colonial French Indochina from 1900-1930. Their response to contemporary Vietnamese and foreign novels (in Vietnamese translation and in their original languages) can also be observed both in their published writings and through their social reactions. "Women's suicide" is discussed as an example to bring up the effects of early 20th-century female readership as well as social blames on and critics against the "excessiveness" of women's reading.

Nguyen Nam: When a lecturer in pre-modern Vietnamese literature and Han-Nom scripts in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities (Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City), Nguyen Nam was awarded a Harvard-Yenching Institute fellowship that allowed him to spend the 1991-92 year in the United States as a Visiting Scholar. Upon his return to Vietnam in 1992, he joined the Department of Oriental Studies at VNU, where he served as the head of the East Asian Studies Section of the Department (1993-1994). He earned both his MA in Regional Studies - East Asia and PhD in Chinese literature from Harvard in 1996 and 2005, respectively. Nguyen Nam is now the Academic Program Manager of the Harvard-Yenching Institute. He is also a frequent speaker on Chinese and Vietnamese literature at the Institute of Literature (Hanoi), and at both the Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City campuses of the Vietnam National University.

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