It was the beginning of another morning session for Contested Territory and I was still circulating ideas in my mind about connections between Vietnam and the South Side of Chicago. While perusing my notebook to find a clean page, our speaker for the session was introduced and we all settled in for the lecture. I … Continued
“There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. The idea of “contested territories”, which we have wrestled with this week, can apply to how the war is remembered and … Continued
This seminar has been an amazing experience for me. I have always admired Ho Chi Minh. His commitment to the people of Vietnam and his efforts to free his land from colonialism is such an inspirational story. I must admit that I had never heard of the term Contested Territory before I came to this … Continued
The most powerful Humanities Moments for me occurred during William Sturkey’s NEH session entitled “Contested Patriotisms: Dissent and Nationalism on the US Homefront.” One thing that stuck with me was Sturkey’s assertion that “dissention always has consequences.” He then gave Muhammad Ali as an example of how anti-war stance severely affected him on both a … Continued
I was selected for a two week institute entitled, Contested Territory, in which we took a deep dive into the multiple understandings and misunderstanding surrounding the Vietnam War (or as the Vietnamese refer to it: The American War). I had a basic understanding of this war in that it was a product of the Cold … Continued
I misunderstood the Geneva Accords and the reasons behind American involvement in Vietnam. I knew it was in the context of the Cold War but I did not understand why it had to happen and was I to teach a war or a conflict? After Pierre Asselin spoke on the subject and shared a similar … Continued
Muhammad Ali was drafted into the Vietnam War in 1966. Ali did not believe in fighting in the war and he was willing to sacrifice everything based on those principles. “My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America,” … Continued
Over the course of the National Humanities Center Institute on Contested Territory: Southeast Asia 1945-1975 through the National Endowment for the Humanities, I learned about the contributing factors to the definition of territory. For instance; how territory is defined, claimed, argued about, and taken away. Territory is far more than just a physical space that … Continued
Sometimes you have to leave a place to understand it better. By travelling to North Carolina, I have come to understand a local resource in a new and different way. The idea of Vietnam as contested territory has long held fascination for me. I grew up at a time when we were trying to digest … Continued
I visited Barbados on a teacher professional development trip in 2018. My assigned research topic for the trip was Bussa’s 1816 slave rebellion. Within three days in April of that year, the rebellion had spread to most of the southern half of the island. Slavery in Barbados was addressed in a limited way by tour … Continued