Literature

At climactic moments in Marie de France's Yonec and Guigemar, the two knight-protagonists are both violently impaled or wounded. These wounds, and the Old French terms "plaie", "navrer", and "ferir" used to describe them, force the reader to reimagine the knight's body and revise the chivalric requirements of medieval masculinity. Given their common vocabulary, Yonec and Guigemar can be read in tandem as a thematic and linguistic pair, and this vocabulary allows the tales to reimagine the knight's body with female genitalia. Marie's knights represented with vaginas challenge the wound's symbolic association with the performative violence of the chivalric tradition and suggest the transformative power of love to queer men's bodies in the lais.

Tracing various historical and literary iterations of the trope of the prodigal son in the early context of Vietnamese travel abroad, this essay puts into question what it means to feel kinship to one's native culture and land. By focusing on important particularities of Viet namese life and culture in the first half of the twentieth century, in cluding increased diasporic mobility, a shift from ideographic to alphabetic writing systems, and new cultural influences from France, the author advances the argument that kinship, though uncanny and difficult to define, is not merely an automatic transfer of connection or relation from one generation to the next. Rather, kinship operates on a scale beyond the family, requiring a conscious questioning of one's identity in relation to one's place of origin.

Phạm Quỳnh (1893-1945), twentieth century Vietnamese intellectual and politician, is a contentious figure in Vietnamese colonial history in terms of his collaboration with the French administration. Much of the mixed opinions on his role, though gleaned from his essays and political positions, have not yet been connected to the ambiguities of the colonial reforms concurrent with his budding career. Informed by Homi Bhabha's framework of 'mimicry', this study offers a reading of Phạm Quỳnh's attachment to language, both tongue and discourse, to nuance his character and reveal the ambiguous articulations of French colonial policy in Vietnam.

Communist Party Congress in 2016, when Phú Trọng ousted Osius's preferred negotiating partner, Nguyễn Tấn Dũng. Osius provides a compelling account of progress on remediation of Agent Orange, describing how the United States moved from commitments on cleanup of dioxin hotspots to increased disability assistance. He arguably contributed to LGBTQ rights in Vietnam through his own example as an out gay ambassador, and he makes a convincing case that his intervention helped preserve Son Doong cave in Quảng Bình Province. By contrast, his modest efforts to rehabilitate a former South Vietnamese cemetery in Biên Hòa are unlikely to assuage the overseas Vietnamese whom Osius terms "the key to reconciliation" (p. 103). Finally, Osius defends his actions after the 2016 US election, when he remained in his post to maintain momentum in US-Vietnamese ties while preparing to resign "if I was asked to implement policies I could not support" (p. 218). As a self-styled "remonstrating official" (p. 258), Osius opposed the incoming administration's practice of deporting Vietnamese immigrants who had been convicted of crimes, contrary to an agreement reached as part of normalization of relations in 1995. Osius's courageous stance slowed down deportations and raised public concern. In a departure from normal diplomatic practice, Nothing Is Impossible is not shy about criticizing the racist jokes and "scent of corruption" (p. 241) attached to the former US president and his coterie. Yet there is no mention of allegations of corruption in the circle around former Vietnamese prime minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng, whom Osius "liked" (p. 193) and praises as "one of the most influential leaders in Viet Nam's modern history" (p. 164). In recounting the episode of Vietnamese activists and dissidents prevented from meeting with President Obama in May 2016, Osius accepts part of his own naivete about the Vietnamese system, but he remains credulous that the "linkage between Vietnam's TPP ambitions and its human rights record seemed to be working" (p. 172). The belief that "using the leverage that trade provides" can support human rights (p. 263) flies in the face of most evidence. This pro-corporate agenda (Osius worked for Google Asia after leaving the Foreign Service and now leads the US-ASEAN Business Council) sits uneasily with Osius's progressive positions on war legacies, marriage equality, and immigration. Nothing Is Impossible offers the best available summary to date of the US-Vietnamese trajectory toward becoming "allies and partners" (p. 243). While the two countries are indeed partners in many aspects, they are not yet full allies. Osius's narrative shows the limits and the promise of the relationship. When faced with adversity, Osius recalls John Kerry's admonishment, "Don't burn bridges" (p. 201)-positive advice that this memoir applies in diplomacy and in life.

The Saigon Sisters contributes to the limited primary sources available on the activity of Vietnamese women during the Indochina Wars. Norland, trained in journalism and diplomacy, brings to print the stories of nine women through interviews she conducted and translated over three decades, beginning in . These women, collectively referred to as the "Saigon sisters," came from educated families only to leave their statuses and connections behind to participate in revolutionary activity in the s.