Director, Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture & Society (2004-2011)

Professor Alperson’s main interests are in aesthetics, the philosophy of the arts, theory of culture, value theory, and theories of interpretation and criticism, with special interests in the philosophy of music and philosophical questions concerning creativity, performance, and improvisation. Professor Alperson was the editor of The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, the journal of the American Society of Aesthetics, from 1993 – 2003 and is the General Editor of the Blackwell Series, Foundations of Aesthetics. He is currently at work on a book on the philosophy of music. He is the Founding Director of the Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture and Society and was the Founding Director of the Center for the Humanities at Temple. He directs the department’s faculty exchange program with Vietnam, leading yearly seminars in Hanoi. He is also sometimes a jazz musician.

Assistant Professor, Department of Religion

Dr. Marcus Bingenheimer 馬德偉 was born in Germany. He obtained an MA (Sinology) and Dr.phil (History of Religions) from Würzburg University and an MA (Communication Studies) from Nagoya University. Marcus currently works as Assistant Professor at Temple University, Philadelphia. From 2005 to 2011 he taught at Dharma Drum Buddhist College 法鼓佛教學院, Taiwan, where he supervised various projects concerning the digitization of Buddhist culture. Here is a blog about these issues. His main research interests are the history of Buddhism in East Asia and early Buddhist Sutra literature. Currently, he is working on two very different kinds of texts: Āgama literature and Ming-Qing dynasty temple gazetteers. Next to that, Marcus is interested in Humanities Computing and how to do research in the age of digital information.

Some of Dr. Bingenheimer’s current projects include:

• As project director (since 2010): A Critical, Digital Edition of the Song gaoseng zhuan 宋高僧傳之校勘與數位化版本. Aims at a best edition and visualization of the Song gaoseng zhuan. Funded by the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange 蔣經國國際學術交流基金會 (RG001-D-09).
• As project director (since 2008): Digital Archive of Chinese Buddhist Temple Gazetteers 中國佛教寺廟志數位典藏. Digitization of 230+ Buddhist temple gazetteers 中國佛寺志. Funded by the Chung-hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies 中華佛學研究學院.
• As editor and translator (since 2005): A Translation of the Chinese Madhyama Āgama, the Zhong ahan jing 中阿含經 (T.26). This long-term translation project is funded by the Numata Foundation 仏教伝道協会. (See here). The first of three volumes is forthcoming 2012. Once completed, this project will be the largest translation from Buddhist Chinese into an European language so far.

For more information, please see a sample of projects, book, article and online publications, and lectures at Marcus Bingenheimer net.

Operation Manager, Institute for Research on Educational Development (IRED)

Ms. Nguyễn Thị Hồng Đào is currently a visiting research fellow of the Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture and Society, Temple University. She is also a member of Comparative Education Society of Asia (CESA). Her research focuses on higher education and educational leadership.

In her home country – Vietnam, she is Operation Manager of the Institute for Research on Educational Development (IRED). In addition, she serves as researcher, participating in research projects on topics relevant to her professional interests and IRED’s initiatives.

Ms. Nguyễn has many years of experience working in higher education and external relations. She participated in managing research and international relations activities at An Giang University, Vietnam. She was appointed as Vice Director of the External Relations Department of An Giang Province and elected as a member of the National Assembly of Vietnam, term XI (2002-2007).

Ms. Nguyễn holds a B.A degree in English Teacher Education from Cần Thơ University (Vietnam) and a master’s degree in Higher Education Administration from Boston College (U.S.A.) under the Fulbright Program Scholarship.

**Honors and Fellowships

• 2015: To be appointed as a visiting research scholar of the Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture and Society, Temple University, the USA to do the research on on emerging issues and public policy of private higher education in Vietnam and American implications.
• 2013: Selected by Institute for Research on Educational Development (IRED) and the Asia-Pacific Center of Leadership and Change (APCLC) of Hong Kong Institute of Education to participate in the Cross-Cultural Collaborative Research Study on Instructional Leadership in East Asia.
• 2006: Honorably selected to represent young MP women to deliver a key-note speech at the 60th Anniversary of the National Assembly of Vietnam celebrated in Ha Noi.
• 2005: Awarded a fellowship co-granted by UNDP Regional Center in Bangkok, Thailand and LEAD International, UK for strengthening young leadership in governance.
• 2003: Awarded a Fulbright Program scholarship for taking Master’s degree in Higher Education Administration, Boston College.

Publications

• Nguyễn, Đào T.H. (2005). Education of Vietnam at the threshold of WTO admission. Tia Sáng (Light Beam). Journal of Ministry of Science and Technology, Vietnam, 11:37-39. Reprinted in An Giang University Journal of Science with the title “GATS and implications for Vietnam,” 23:50-51 [in Vietnamese].
• Nguyễn, Đào T.H. (2005). Common challenges of higher education in developing countries and recent reforms. An Giang University Journal of Science, 21: 36-39 [in Vietnamese]. Nguyễn, Đào T.H. (2004). Oversea study from global look. An Giang University Journal of Science, 19: 16-19 [in Vietnamese].

Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, Rutgers University

Mary Hawkesworth is Professor and Chair in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies and a member of the Graduate Faculty in Political Science at Rutgers University. Her teaching and research interests include feminist theory, women and politics, contemporary political philosophy, philosophy of science, and social policy. Hawkesworth is the author of Globalization and Feminist Activism (Rowman and Littlefield, 2006); Feminist Inquiry: From Political Conviction to Methodological Innovation (Rutgers University Press, 2006); Beyond Oppression: Feminist Theory and Political Strategy (New York: Continuum Press, 1990); and Theoretical Issues in Policy Analysis (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988); co-author of Women, Democracy and Globalization in North America (Palgrave, 2006); editor of War and Terror: Feminist Perspectives (University of Chicago Press, forthcoming 2008), The Encyclopedia of Government and Politics (London: Routledge, 1992; 2nd Revised Edition, 2003), and Feminism and Public Policy (Policy Sciences 27(2-3), 1994), and co-editor of Gender, Globalization and Democratization (Rowman and Littlefield, 2001). Her articles have appeared in leading journals including the American Political Science Review, Political Theory, Signs, Hypatia, Women and Politics, Journal of Women’s History, NWSA Journal, International Journal of Women’s Studies, and the Women’s Studies International Forum. She has served on the Editorial Boards of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Women and Politics and the International Feminist Journal of Politics. She is serving as the Editor of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 2005-2010.

Under the auspices of the Temple Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture and Society, Hawkesworth organized a week long intensive seminar for scholars on “Feminist Philosophy” at the Ho Chi Minh National Political Academy, Hanoi in January 2008. She has participated in the Seminars on Western Philosophy in 2003, 2004, and 2007, giving presentations on “Social Justice and Feminist Strategies for Social Change,” “Feminists v. Feminization: The Quest for Social Justice in the 21st Century,” “David Hume and James Madison: Defining the Public Good in Terms of Private Interest,” “Jean-Jacques Rousseau: On the Dilemma of Liberty and Equality,” “John Locke: On the Justification of Private Property and the State as the Protector of Private Property,” “Thomas Hobbes and the Mechanistic Conception of Self and State,” “Gender and Globalization,” “Feminist Critiques of Culture: Theory and Practice.” She has also helped organize briefings in Washington, D.C. for delegations of Vietnamese scholars visiting the United States.

National Institute for Educational Management

Education

• 1981: M.A. Economics, Hanoi University. Thesis: Export fluentuation tendency of United States of America - Japan - Western Europe after II World War.
• 1993: Ph.D. Kiev National Economic University. Thesis: The Development of Collective economic benefit of State enterprises in the market economy.

Books:

• “Some problems of population and development relation”. Tran Cao Son (editor), member of authors. Social Science Publishing House, Hanoi, 1997.
• “Catholic people with population - family planning”. Tran Cao Son (editor), member of authors. Social Science Publishing House, Hanoi, 1998.
• “The economic index in the Human Development Indices (HDI) - the approach and some of research results”. Co-chief editor, National Politics Publishing House, Hanoi, 2005.
• “The expectation of life index in the Human Development Indices (HDI) - some of the practice problems in Vietnam” Co-chief editor, National Politics Publishing House, Hanoi, 2005.
• “The education index in the Human Development Indices (HDI) - the approach and some of research results”. Member of authors, National Politics Publishing House, Hanoi, 2005.
• “The solution for enhance ecological sense of community for sustainability development”. Pham Thanh Nghi (editor), member of authors. Social Science Publishing House, Hanoi, 2005.
• “The research of Human Development Indices (HDI) in Vietnam”, Member of authors, National Politics Publishing House, Hanoi, 2008. Articles and papers: About 100 articles in reviews, journals and books, in workshop and international conferences.

Seminars and Conferences Abroad:

• Ukraine, 1987 - 1994, Post-graduate.
• French, 1997, exchanging the experiences of Psychological education and science research.
• Korea Republic, 2004, exchanging the experiences of education and science research.
• Philippine, 2004, the Workshop on Dissemination of the first Report on Millennium Development Goals of Asia - Pacific.
• America, 2006, Visiting Scholar at Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture and Society, Temple University, Pennsylvania.
• Sweden, Aug 2007, the Conference “Women’s Leadership”, Umea University.
• China, 2007, exchanging the experiences of human development research at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Research Projects since 2006…

• Feb-Apr 2006 Visiting Scholar at Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture and Society, Temple University, Pennsylvania, US
• 2006 Participant of the Province Research Project “Studying HDI in Hoa Binh”
• 2007 Participant of Ministry Project “Using Human Development Index for estimating of National Budget”
• 2007 Participant of Ministry Project “Human Development in Tay Bac region”
• 2007 Head of Ministry Project “Approach to goal of Human Development in socio- economical plans”
• 2007 Participant of Institute Project “To build the content for 100 human development terms”
• 2007 Head of Project “Women and Land”
• 2007- 2008 Head of Ministry Project “Human Development: the local government officers’ opinion and activities”
• 2008 Participant of Institute Project “The situation of human development research in 2007”
• 2008 Consultant for Project 49131 “Support to the preparation of Millennium Development Goals report 2008 and 2010”, Ministry of Planning and Investment
• 2008-2009 Participant of the National Research Project KX03/06/10 “The development of Culture and Human in East Asia countries.”and more… since 1982.

She is a founding member of the Ford Foundation Project for Philosophical Development in Vietnam, parts of which are the English-Vietnamese Handbook on Philosophy and Political Economy, and series of international conferences in philosophy.

She has published in philosophical journals including The Journal of Philosophy and Philosophy and Practice. She has participated in multiple philosophical research projects including Ho Chi Minh’s Style of Thinking published in 2001. She is also a translator. One of her translated works, Guidelines For The Translation Of Social Science Texts, was published by American Council Of Learned Society in 2006. She interests in Philosophy of Existence, Philosophy of Lao Tzu 老子 and Chuang Tzu 莊子, Zen Buddhist Philosophy, Vietnamese Philosophy and Philosophy of Vietnamese Classical Literature, Comparative Philosophy, Aesthetics, German Idealism, Phenomenology, and Marxism.

• 2007 - present: She is a doctoral candidate in Philosophy at Temple University.
• 2003 - present: The Ford Foundation fellowship for the Ph.D program in Philosophy at Temple University.
• 2001: American Council of Learned Society-ACLS (CEEVN) scholarship for Language Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
• 2000: Swiss Government fellowship for Human Right Studies at Summer University for Human Rights and the Right to Education, Geneva, Switzerland.
• 1996- present: Faculty member at the Department of Philosophy, the Ho Chi Minh National Political Academy, Hanoi, Vietnam.

Vice-Dean Faculty of Philosophy, University of Social Sciences & Humanities Vietnam National University

Nguyen Vu Hao is Associate Professor, Vice Dean, Faculty of Philosophy, College of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, and Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture and Society and the Department of Philosophy, Temple University (in the academic year 2010-2011).

He received a BA (1986) in Philosophy from the Rostov University, Rostov-on-Don, Russia; a MA (1997) and a PhD. (2002) in Philosophy, Political Science and South East Asian Studies from the Passau University, Germany. His dissertation focuses on the conception of human being in Wittgenstein’s Language Philosophy.

His lectures and research interests concern History of Western Philosophy, Contemporary Western Philosophy, Philosophical Anthropology, Philosophy of Education, East-West Comparative Philosophy, Political Philosophy, History of Political Theories and Research and Teaching issues of Philosophy in Vietnam.

He has carried out research projects on “Kant’s Anthropology in Philosophical View” (2005) and “Conception of human being in some Trends of Contemporary Western Philosophy” (2007). He is a leading researcher in projects such as “Some Ethical Conceptions in the Contemporary Western Philosophy and their Influences in Vietnam in the Present Context of Integration” (2009-2011) and “Intelligence, Intelligence Resources, Development Intelligence Resources: Theoretical Problems and Approaches” - the first Branch of the State Research Project: “The Development Vietnamese Intelligence Resources for Prosperity of the Country in the 21st Century” (2009-2010).

His Fulbright research Project is concerned with “John Dewey’s Philosophy of Education and Its Applied Values for Fundamental Renovation of Philosophy of Education in Vietnam in the 21st Century”.

He was a co-organizer of international and national Philosophical Conferences at College of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU (Hanoi):

• “German Classical Philosophy: Problems of Epistemology and Ethics” (2004);
• “Vietnamese Philosophical Thoughts in the Context of the Introduction of Eastern - Western Thoughts into Vietnam” (2005),
• “Issues of Western Philosophy in the 20th Century” (2006);
• “Tran Duc Thao: Person and Heritage” (2007);
• “Vietnam-Russia Relationship: Past and present” - The Second Section: Soviet Philosophy and its Influences in Vietnam (2007);
• “Research and Teaching of Philosophy in the Context of Current Integration” (2008);
• “Social morals in Vietnam at Present: Theoretical and Practical Problems” (2009).

Sample Publications:

• Person and Education in Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy, Edition Wissenschaft Reihe Philosophie, Bd 27, Marburg: Tectum Verlag, 2000;
• The Conception of Human being in Wittgenstein’s Language Philosophy-Anthropological Foundations for Education and Intercultural Understanding, Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovac, 2002;
• Are Conflicts of Religions avoidable and solvable in the globalized World?, in: Wittgenstein-Studies, No. 11 (2005), Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main;
• Kant’s Thinking on the Unity of Epistemology and Ethics in the Anthropology, in: Trinh, Tri Thuc und Nguyen, Vu Hao (Ed.): German - Classical Philosophy: Problems of Epistemology and Ethics. Proceedings of International Conference 2004), National Political Publishers, Hanoi, 2006;
• “Conflict between cultural world outlooks in the Era of Globalization: Some Reasons and Solutions in philosophical viewpoint”, in: Journal of Science, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, E5 (2006);
• Approach of the East-West Comparative Philosophy: History of Problem and Prospect, in: Philosophical Journal, N 6(2007);
• The Conception of the Ego Structure: Transformation from Kant und Schopenhauer to Wittgenstein; and
• M. Heidegger’s Philosophical Thought and its Influences on Trends of the Western Philosophy in the 20th Century, in: Proceedings of International Conference “Issues of Western Philosophy in the 20th Century”, VNU-Publishers, Hanoi, 2007.

Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology

I am the director of our visual anthropology programs and director of the media lab I have been involved in interpreting culture on film and video for the past twenty years. I have been educated at the St Stephens College, Delhi, India, where I received a BA in English Literature (1968), from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology I received a MVS (1983) and from Harvard University I received a Ph.D (1991). I’ve produced, directed, filmed and edited over fifteen well received ethnographic films, that illustrate the cultures of India and the U.S. and speak to various issues in visual anthropology. A Zenana and Tragada Bhavai [1981], Bharvad Predicament, Journey with Ganapati [1983], Forgotten Headhunters and Apatani Sacrifice (1978), Whose Paintings? (1995), Morning with Asch (1997) and Conversation with a Collector: Dialogue with a Docent (1998), ShaktiMa Noh Veh (2006), The last rtes of the Honorable Mr Rai (2008) have been seen by national and international audiences. My written publications address issues about art and anthropology, nomadism, religious worship, indigenous interpretations of local culture, ethnographic filmmaking and its reception, photography, Hindu marriage, and Rajput ideology and politics. My research is concerned with the interpretation of culture on various audio, visual and audio-visual media and new conventions by which to make visual communication more effective.

In addition, I am concerned with visual ethnographers, their biographies and their practice. At the present time I am working on several ethnographic films that address themes of transhumance, Hindu domestic worship, animal worship, Hindu philosophical concepts, Rajput ideology and biography. Much of this material has been gathered and structured in collaborations with Temple graduate students (Courtney Stoll, Robert Segel, Bruce Broce, Dr. Mathew Durrington, Dr.Joseph Gonzales, Susanne Kempf, Robert Lazarsky, Dr.Carey Million, Elizabeth Noznesky, Dr. Sam Pack, Dr. Lindsey Powell, Dr Pallabi Charkravoty), and undergraduate students (Rhett Grumbkow, Katey Mangels, Justin Agnew, Alethea carbough, Lauren Semmel, Ilan Isakov, Paul Salvitti,Richard Cousins, Ronn Asch, Alex Goldblum, Brendan Muzinski, Shawn Tymon, Philip Rached, Mioko Kurasawa) in field research and media lab participation in the US and in India, and in collaboration with individuals and institutions in both countries. I am the Director of the Temple University Summer Program for India. This is intended for undergraduates and graduate students alike and it is designed to introduce them to an alien culture in a nurturing environment. Students can explore the various dimensions of the program by looking it up as well as contacting the Temple University International Program’s Director Denise Connerty at (215) 204- 0727. I am now the Director of the new Visual Anthropology Initiative for Vietnam at Temple University, Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture, & Society and am assisting in growing the discipline of visual anthropology in Vietnam, with Dr. Lauren Meeker, Dr. Nguyen Bich Hien, Lauren Semmel, Dr. Philip Alperson and Dr. Sophie Quinn-Judge.

Kristy Kelly (University of Wisconsin – Madison, PhD) is a sociologist specializing in gender and development, policy and politics, transnational feminisms, gender mainstreaming, and social transformation. She uses gender and education as critical lenses to examine social change in Southeast Asia, primarily in Vietnam. She is currently assistant professor of global and international education at Drexel University where she teaches courses on gender and education, education diplomacy, the political economy of education reform, and qualitative research methods. She is simultaneously affiliated with the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University, where she served as Postdoctoral Fellow in Modern Southeast Asian Studies (2010-2012).

Dr. Kelly is completing a book titled Whatever Happened to Comrade? The Politics of Gender and Development in Vietnam, which is a multi-year ethnography of Vietnamese feminist engagement with gender and development discourses, policies and practices, and with the state, development institutions and each other in post-socialist Vietnam. Her book illuminates training as a key feminist space, place and process for transforming social relations and development practice. Dr. Kelly has also published on higher education in Vietnam; gender, land and corruption in Africa; women and educational leadership; feminist pedagogies and online learning; transnational feminisms; and the politics of gender, class and citizenship in Asia.

Dr. Kelly received her MA and PhD from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and her BA from Pennsylvania State University. Prior to joining Academia, Dr. Kelly worked for a variety of development organizations, including the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Hong Kong, the Center for Southeast Asian Refugee Resettlement (CSEARR) in San Francisco, and Volunteers in Asia (VIA) in Vietnam. She established the first Vietnam office of the Institute of International Education (IIE) in Hanoi, where she lived from 1992 to 2000. She continues to consult and advise on gender, education and development issues for multilateral and humanitarian aid organizations in Asia and Africa. Dr. Kelly serves as an Expert Advisor on Training for Gender Equality and Gender Mainstreaming to the United Nations, and is a Fulbright Core Specialist on Gender Equality.

In 2007 Dr. Lauren Meeker became a Research Fellow of the Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture and Society. She received her Ph.D. in 2007 from Columbia University for her dissertation on quan ho singing: Mediating the Folk: television and the representation of traditional culture in Vietnam. She was an ACLS International Dissertation Field Research Fellow, as well as a Fulbright-Hays Fellow in Vietnam.

She is collaborating with Temple’s Vietnam Center on a long-term project to film traditional folk festivals in Vietnam.

Professor, Institute of Psychology Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences

Phạm Thanh Nghị is a Professor at the Graduate Academy of Social Sciences, Vietnam; he is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Psychology, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences (VASS). He got his Ph.D. in psychology at the Academy of Education (Soviet Union) in 1989, Master of Educational Administration at the University of New England (Australia) in 1997. He was a Fulbright Scholar at SUNY Buffalo (USA) in 1999/2000; Japan Foundation Scholar at Nagoya University in 2003, and Endeavour Executive Award at Southern Cross University (Australia) in 2009. His areas of specialization include cultural psychology and values studies, human and human resource development, higher education administration, psychology of education and creativity.

Phạm Thanh Nghị is an author, co-author and editor of 15 books published in Vietnamese and a co-editor of a book called “Reforming Higher Education in Vietnam, Challenges and Priorities” published in English by Springer in 2010. He has about 80 research articles published in Vietnamese Journals and more than 10 research articles and conference papers published overseas in English. His recent works called “Relationship between Socio-Economic Values and Wellbeing: An Overview Research in Asia”, published in Social Indicators Research (April 2013), and “Leadership, Resources and Organizational Innovation: Findings from State and Non-State Enterprises”, published in International Journal of Innovation Management (Oct. 2014).

Phạm Thanh Nghị is a principal investigator for the World Values Survey 2001, 2007 in Vietnam, (World Values Survey Association), principal investigator for Asia Barometer Survey 2007, 2010 in Vietnam; Principal Investigator of the Project: The Changing Academic Profession in Asia, undertaken by the Research Institute of Higher Education, Hiroshima University, 2012-2015. He is also a Vice-President of Vietnam Association of Social Psychology (VASP), and works as a reviewer of the VASP Journal of Social Psychology.

Nam Nguyen is a recent DMA graduate of Temple University. His dissertation is Solo Piano Music by Vietnamese composers: A Performative and Historical Perspective. His principal teachers have included Ha Thu Tran, Harvey Wedeen, and Ching-Yun Hu; he also studied collaborative piano with Lambert Orkis and early keyboard instruments with Joyce Lindorff. Besides playing traditional solo piano repertoire, Nguyen is actively involved in the performance of contemporary music as well as participating in different ensembles of various sizes. Nam started his piano training at the age of six and attended Vietnam Academy of Music before coming to Temple. While he spent his early years learning piano in Vietnam, he did not have much experience to the classical music by Vietnamese composers and did not know many works in the repertoire. Exposure to the development of Classical Music in America, which brought forth some of the most original composers such as Charles Ives, George Gershwin, sparked his interest in his own culture, and he decided to research the topic of Vietnamese piano music for his dissertation. He is continuing the research on Vietnamese music beyond the scope of his dissertation in his work with the center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture and Society.

You can view Nam's curriculum vitae.  Go to his YouTube channel to see his performances and lecture.

Dr. Ngô Thanh Nhàn as Visiting Research Scholar, from September 1, 2006. Dr Nhàn will be working on projects connected to the digitizing of Nôm documents, in particular the collection of Hán Nôm documents held by the Institute of Social Science Information in Hanoi and village records with the General Library of Thừa Thiên-Huế in 2014. Since 2016 he is involving in a graphic representation of Vietnamese folk music.

Dr. Nhàn is a computational linguist who specializes in computer character encoding.

He was associated with Vietnam’s efforts to standardize codes for Quốc Ngữ, its romanized script; since 1992 he has been working on the ideographic-based Nom script, the first system for writing the Vietnamese language. Go to Ngô Thanh Nhàn’s web page.

See more information on the Preservation of Vietnam’s Nôm Script and the Center’s Nôm Studies Corner.

PhD and University Fellow, Department of Anthropology

I am a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology with a specialization in Linguistic Anthropology. As an anthropologist, I believe that understanding the complexity of the world’s languages is as important as knowing how the ecosystem works. My primary interests are the Austronesian-speaking people of Vietnam: the Cham, Chru, Ede, Raglai and Jarai, who reflect the incredible intersections of mainland and maritime culture. While modernity and globalization continue at an extraordinary pace throughout Southeast Asia, I explore their relationships to language socialization, attrition, and endangerment within this region of the world. I hold a master’s degree in Bilingual Multicultural Education/TESOL from Southern Connecticut State University, where I also earned my bachelor’s degree (summa cum laude) in anthropology with minors in Asian studies and psychology. My previous experiences include fieldwork in the Dominican Republic, research on Drifters in San Francisco, and teaching English in both Shaoxing, China and the Ho Chi Minh City University of Education in Vietnam.

M.A. Music Education, Columbia University Teachers College

Tara Thu Phan, M.A., is a highly motivated, self-directed educator who constantly design fun learning experiences to nurture the love of music in young children. She has been appointed Artist-in-Residence at Mekong NYC in 2016. Her work focuses on cultivating traditional identities for underserved Southeast Asian children in the Bronx through music, visualization, and traditional games. She has also been volunteering to teach music to cancer children. She believes that, by possessing skills in and experiencing the joy of appreciating and creating artworks, children will develop more resilient attitudes towards life’s hardship and illness. Tara’s goal is to make high-quality music education more accessible to underprivileged children. She is doing research on designing and manufacturing music teaching aids that is of high quality, low cost, and mobile for remote teaching sites. Tara is also a teaching artist holding interactive piano recitals for children.

• May 24-25, 2018
  “Teaching Vietnamese music through linguistic and folklore contexts,” with Dr. Ngô Thanh Nhàn, at the Breaking Boundaries: Community Music Research Symposium, Columbia University Teachers Colleges, New York.

• December, 2017
  “A Contribution to Teaching Vietnamese Music: Key Pitches in Context and Pitch Contour Graph,” with Dr. Ngô Thanh Nhàn, Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Vol 3, No 5 (2017): 573-585. Hanoi: Vietnam.

• November 15, 2017
  Capturing the Music: The Digitization and Preservation of Traditional Vietnamese Folk Music, presentation at the 12th Annual Global Temple Conference, panel Multi-disciplinary empirical approaches to Vietnamese Studies at the Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture & Society, Howard Gittis Student Center, Room 217D, 10:00 - 10:50 AM.

• October 18-21, 2017
  A graphic presentation and preservation of Vietnamese storytelling music, presentation at the 128th Annual American Folklore Society, Community: Resistance, Reclamation, and Re-Creation, Minneapolis, MN. Tracking number: AFS2017-242. Gerald L Davis Travel Grant recipient. See samples here.

• October 6-8, 2017: Capturing the Music: A case study of lý con sáo
  three regional “Songs of the Starling, presentation at the 46th Annual Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies Conference: Mobility, Technology and the Environment in Asia, Panel E1 - October 8, 2017, 08:45 am, Drexel University, Gerri LeBow Hall, Room 209.

• October 2017: Member of the Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies

• August 2017–today: Member of the Association for Asian Studies.

• April 15, 2017: Initial thoughts on analyzing sonic objects to aid multicultural education, Prezi presentation the Asian/Asian American Education Conference, Grace Dodge Hall 127, Teachers College, Columbia University.

• March 2017–today: Member of the American Folklore Society.

• December 15-18, 2016: An initial analysis on the interations of Vietnamese linguistic tones & Vietnamese folk music, with Dr. Ngô Thanh Nhàn for Section 2: Cultural Resources, The 5th International Conference on Vietnamese Studies: Sustainable Development in the Context of Global Change, Vietnam National University, at National Convention Center, Hanoi, Vietnam.

• November 9, 2016: An initial analysis on the relationship of Vietnamese music and its linguistic tones, by Phan Gia Anh Thư & Ngô Thanh Nhàn, in New contributions in Vietnamese Studies, at the 11th Annual Global Temple Conference 2016: Panel 11 - November 9, 2016, 2:00 - 2:50 pm, Howard Gittis Student Center, Room 217A.

• August 11, 2016: A contribution to teaching Vietnamese music: Key notes in context and pitch contour map, with Dr. Ngô Thanh Nhàn, Proceedings of the ICESI 2016 International Conference on Education and Social Integration, pp. 144-156, ISBN 978-0-9945391-0-6, organized by the Temple Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture & Society and Tôn Đức Thắng University, Hồ Chí Minh City, Vietnam.

Visiting Fullbright Scholar, 2006-2007

Dr. Trần Hàn Giang, former Director of the Institute of Family and Gender Studies of the Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences, spent the 2006-7 academic year at Temple as a Fulbright scholar. She is a historian who specializes in the study of gender relations throughout Vietnamese history. The strongest academic influence in her career came from her mentors at the University of Tokyo, where she studied with the “mother of Japanese women’s studies”, Hiroko Hara, and the well-known historian of Vietnam, Moto Furuta. Her dissertation concerns Vietnamese gender relations in the French colonial period. During her stay in the United States, Dr. Tran carried out research among the Vietnamese community about gender relations in South Vietnam, in the period from 1954 to 1975.

Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology

Lu Zhang is an assistant professor of sociology at Temple University. Her areas of specialization include globalization, labor and social movements, and the political economy of development in East Asia, especially China. She is currently working on a book project on the conditions, subjectivity and collective actions of Chinese autoworkers. This work explores how global capitalism, national state institutions and socialist legacies, and shop-floor labor activism have interacted in complex ways to produce the specific labor relations and dynamics of labor unrest in the Chinese automobile industry. It is based on twenty months fieldwork and around 300 in-depth interviews in seven automobile factories in six Chinese cities.

Zhang has started a new research project that explores the causes, processes, and impacts of capital relocation within China (from coastal to inland regions) as well as out of China to the new low-cost sites such as Vietnam in the global electronics industry. This comparative case study follows the geographical relocations of two electronics multinationals from the same eastern coastal region of China under the pressure of rising (labor) costs. While both companies have opted to move their manufacturing bases to both inland China and to Vietnam, the difference in their positions in global production networks, technological intensity, recruitment strategies and workers profiles on one hand, and the variations in local governments incentives and strategies towards foreign investments, local labor markets conditions and human capital investment, and local communities and cultures on the other hand, have led to varied workplace relations and labor regimes in the new production sites. By comparing the empirical evidence from China with Vietnam based on site visits and interviews, we are ready to gain some insights into the sustainable economic and social development strategies of central and local governments in (post-socialist) developing countries, and how these interact with the “labor” factor in the context of globalization and capital mobility.