of American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Honors Dominique Pham (CAS '23) Received the President's Faculty Award at the organization's annual conference held in 2017. Montreal, Canada from April 14th to 17th.
Full disclosure: Dominique Pham served as Senior Design Editor at The Hoya in Fall 2020, Managing Editor in Spring 2021, Creative Director in Fall 2021, and Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Spring 2022.
This award was in recognition of his honors thesis. The title is “The Struggle Continues: Transnational Encounters and Spatial Divide in Singaporean and Vietnamese Literature.” Focuses on internationalism in Vietnamese and Singaporean literature. Pham took an Asian American literature class in his freshman year, and a Singaporean literature class he took while studying abroad in Singapore as a junior inspired his dissertation, which he completed last year. .
Pham is currently in biophysics from Stanford University, He said his decision to focus on Vietnamese literature was in part due to his family's experience as refugees.
“Ultimately, I came back to my personal identity and the fact that my family is Vietnamese refugees,” Pham told The Hoya. “I think as a child I was always, in the back of my mind, interested in the issue of immigration, how people move and how they evacuate. And doing that in the context of Southeast Asia. It made sense in the sense that I could write this academic piece and explore my own personal identity at the same time.”
Pham's research focused on issues of immigration and identity in the 20th century, examining the idea of a global and cosmopolitan identity that connects others through more than nationality and culture.
Pham added that of the four books he analyzed, his findings do not represent a universal human experience.
“The argument is that you can be international and you can have different connections to different cultures, but that doesn't mean you connect with everyone on a universal level.” Pham said. “And the second finding is that literature can help fill that void by allowing people to imagine a world that is more connected than it actually is.”
Nicoletta Pierdoux, director of the World Literature and Comparative Literature Program, and Philippe Kafalas, associate professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures.served as a mentor to Pham as he prepared his thesis.
Kafalas, who worked with Pham during the first half of his research process, said Pham's experience in the field of biology was evident throughout his research and is what sets him apart from other students. Told.
“He was working on refining his theory of cosmopolitanism in light of what he had seen. I never asked him about it in detail, but he was a biochemist. But I always had a hunch,” Calafas told The Hoya. “And this is what scientists do all the time, right? You always question the theory.”
Pierdu, who collaborated with Pham on the latter half of his doctoral thesis, said he will not only compare two novels from post-independence Singapore and two Vietnamese novels written during the Vietnam War, but also examine the complexities of globalization. He said his research is unique in this respect.
“So this is not just one way of dealing with the problems of globalism, but rather he is talking about the problematic relationships between different nations, between different peoples, the problems that colonization, political ideologies, the Cold War have produced. We're digging into the cracks,” Pierdoux told The Hoya. , “What kind of cosmopolitanism can individuals build as they seek to overcome these difficult circumstances?”
Pierdoux is active with ACLA and has been nominated for awards along with Kafalas and Pham. Nicole Rizzuto, English professor; She organized a seminar held at the ACLA conference and was able to attend when Pham received an award.
“It was even more emotional to be there to support a student who is being recognized on a national level,” Pierdoux said. “So we were all excited and proud.”
Pham added that being recognized by ACLA and attending the conference was a special experience for him.
“It’s great to be recognized not just by myself and the committee members, but by a broader audience,” Pham said. “And I was so proud of the work I accomplished my senior year.”
