May 2001 University Reporter

by Theresa Hadley

For its ninth consecutive year the Joiner Center offered a three-day workshop series on teaching aspects of the Vietnam War in high school. Thirty-five teachers from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island attended the Vietnam Institute: The War in the High School Curriculum workshop that was held from June 26 to 28. Working with UMass Boston and visiting faculty members, they explored issues such as the influence of film, comic books, and science on the popular understanding of the Vietnam War. They discussed America’s image of Ho Chi Minh in contrast to historical realities, and examined the culture of Vietnamese people today.

Speakers who led these discussions included: William Duiker, author of Ho Chi Minh and professor emeritus of history at Pennsylvania State University; Bruce Franklin, author of Vietnam and other Fantasies and professor of English and American studies at Rutgers University; David Hunt, editor of The American War in Vietnam and professor of history at UMass Boston; and Caroline Kieu Linh Valverde, who is working on a book examining the Vietnamese diaspora and is currently a visiting Rockefeller scholar at the Joiner Center.

Joiner Center Holds Ninth Annual Vietnam Institute