American War in Viet Nam (eBook)

Cultural Memories at the Turn of the Century

Susan Lyn Eastman (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017
248 Seiten
University of Tennessee Press (Verlag)
978-1-62190-299-7 (ISBN)

Infos

';We have been waiting for a book on war and memory about the American War in Vietnamboth about the Americans and the Vietnamesein the new century of the Desert Wars of Afghanistan and Iraq. Susan Lyn Eastman has fulfilled that expectation, and she has done so with a study impressive in its range of topical issues, texts, and commentary.'Philip D. Beidler, Margaret and William Going Professor of English, University of Alabama After more than four decades, the Viet Nam War continues to haunt our national memory, culture, politics, and military actions. In this probing interdisciplinary study, Susan Lyn Eastman examines a range of cultural productionsfrom memorials and poetry to cinematic and fictional narrativesthat have tried to grapple with the psychic afterlife of traumatic violence resulting from the ill-fated conflict in Southeast Asia. Underpinning the book is the notion of ';prosthetic memory,' which involves memories acquired by those with no direct experience of the war, such as readers and filmgoers. Prosthetic memories, Eastman argues, refuse to relegate the war to the forgotten past and challenge the authenticity of experience, thus ensuring its continued relevance to debates over America's self-conception, specifically her coinage of the ';New Vietnam Syndrome,' and the country's role in world affairs when it comes to contemporary military interventions. With the notable exception of the Veterans' Memorial in Washington, Eastman's focus is on works produced from the Persian Gulf War (199091) through the post-9/11 ';War on Terror.' She looks not only at American representations of the warfrom movies like Randall Wallace'sWe Were Soldiersto poems by W. D. Ehrhart, Yusef Komunyakaa, and othersbut also at novels by Vietnamese authors Bao Ninh and Huong Thu Duong. The experiences of women figure prominently in the book: Eastman devotes a chapter to the Vietnam Women's Memorial and another to Sandie Frazier's novelI Married Vietnamand Oliver Stone's filmHeaven and Earth, based on memoirs by Le Ly Hayslip. And by examining Jessica Hagedorn's Dream Jungle, a novel inspired by the filming of Apocalypse Now, she considers how the war's repercussions were felt in other countries, in this case the Philippines. Her investigation of Vietnamese American authors Lan Cao, Andrew Lam, and GB Tran adds a transnational dimension to the study.SUSAN LYN EASTMANteaches in the Department of English at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 28.3.2017
• Reihe/Serie: Legacies of War
• Sprache: englisch
• Maße: 150 x 150 mm
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Militärgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
• Schlagworte: American Culture • American Politics • Andrew Lam • Apocalypse Now • Bao Ninh • Cultural Production • Dream Jungle • GB Tran • Heaven and Earth • Huong Thu Duong • I Married Vietnam • Jessica Hagedorn • Lan Cao • Le Ly Hayslip • military actions • national memory • New Vietnam Syndrome • Oliver Stone • Philippines • prosthetic memory • Randall Wallace • Sandie Frazier • transnational Vietnam War narratives • traumatic violence • Vietnamese American authors • Vietnam War • Vietnam War in film • Vietnam War in literature • Vietnam Women’s Memorial • War Memorials • War Poetry • W. D. Ehrhart • We were Soldiers • women in the Vietnam War • Yusef Komunyakaa
• ISBN-10: 1-62190-299-4 / 1621902994
• ISBN-13: 978-1-62190-299-7 / 9781621902997