Bending the Long Arc of War to a Vision of Peace: An Interview with Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

Janet J. Graham earned her PhD in literary studies from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in 2019 for her dissertation that examines Vietnamese diasporic literature. She joined the English Department at the University of Nebraska at Kearney in August 2020 as an assistant professor. Her current research interests include critical refugee studies, migration narratives, multiethnic American and anglophone literatures, Vietnamese diasporic literature in English, Vietnamese literature in translation, and critical pedagogy. Her writing has appeared in the Journal of West Indian Literature, Diacritics, and Delos: A Journal of Translation and World Literature.

Quynh H. Vo is a Professorial Lecturer of Asia, Pacific, and Diaspora Studies at American University. Her research interests focus on globalization and Asian literature, Asian American interdisciplinary studies, Vietnamese American literature and culture, and neoliberalism in American transnational literature. She is currently working on her book manuscript tentatively titled Transnational Kinship: Neoliberal Peace and Economic Violence in Vietnamese American Literature and Culture, an interdisciplinary project that weaves together literary analysis and personal narratives to scrutinize Vietnamese Americans’ relationships to Vietnamese nationals; to histories of war, colonialism, and US neoliberal empire; and to each other. Dr. Vo’s writings (in English and Vietnamese) have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books; Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies; Journal of Vietnamese Studies; Da Mau; Saigoneer; Peace, Land, & Bread; and other venues.