Past Events at the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies
January 2014
-
Monday, January 20th Accidental Napalm; or, War, Beauty, Forgiveness
Date Time Location Monday, January 20, 2014 2:00PM - 4:00PM Seminar Room 108N, Munk School of Global Affairs
1 Devonshire Place+ Register for this Event Print this Event Bookmark this Event
Series
Southeast Asia Seminar Series
Description
In The Gift of Freedom, Mimi Thi Nguyen develops a new understanding of contemporary United States empire and its self-interested claims to provide for others the advantage of human freedom. Bringing together critiques of liberalism with postcolonial approaches to the modern cartography of progress, Nguyen proposes “the gift of freedom” as the name for those forces that avow to reverence aliveness and beauty, and to govern an enlightened humanity, while producing new subjects and actions—such as a grateful refugee, or enduring war—in an age of liberal empire. From the Cold War to the global war on terror, the United States simultaneously promises the gift of freedom through war and violence and administers the debt that follows. Focusing here on the figure of Pham Thi Kim Phuc, Nguyen looks at the Vietnam War-era photograph of “accidental napalm” so often remembered as the failure of the gift of freedom to unfold how, through an appeal to forgiveness and the promise of beauty, liberalism’s empire redeems its violence.
Mimi Thi Nguyen is Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her first book, called The Gift of Freedom: War, Debt, and Other Refugee Passages, focuses on the promise of “giving” freedom concurrent and contingent with waging war and its afterlife (Duke University Press, 2012). She is also co-editor with Fiona I.B. Ngo and Mariam Lam of a special issue of positions on Southeast Asians in diasporas (Winter 2012).
If you are attending a Munk School event and require accommodation(s), please email the event contact listed above to make appropriate arrangements.
Disclaimer: Please note that events posted on this website are considered to be public events – unless otherwise stated – and you are choosing to enter a space where your image and/or voice may be captured as part of event proceedings that may be made public as part of a broadcast, webcast, or publication (online and in print). We make every effort to ensure your personal information is kept and used in compliance with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA). If you have any questions please get in touch with our office at munkschool@utoronto.ca or 416-946-8900.