Towards a More Inclusive Memory: Vexed Returns and Just Memory in Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Refugees

• 영문명: Towards a More Inclusive Memory: Vexed Returns and Just Memory in Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Refugees
• 발행기관: 한국아메리카학회
• 저자명: Nami Shin
• 간행물 정보: 『미국학논집』제55집 1호, 69~87쪽, 전체 19쪽
• 주제분류: 인문학 > 기타인문학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2023.05.31

영문 초록

In a collection of essays titled Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (2016), Vietnamese American author and critic, Viet Thanh Nguyen, coins the term “just memory” to discuss the interconnections between memory and war. According to Nguyen, public memories of war are nation-centered. Departing from an ethics of remembering one’s own, Nguyen calls for “an alternative ethics of remembering others.” Taking Nguyen’s discussion of memory and war as a point of departure, this essay examines how the author’s short story collection, The Refugees (2017), enacts the ethics of just memory. I am particularly interested in exploring how the ethics of remembering others in The Refugees is close linked to the experience of return. This essay examines how stories of return in The Refugees expand the ways that war is remembered publicly by including the memories of forgotten others. I argue that the trope of return in Nguyen’s collection of stories is informed by vexed moments of intimate encounter that rewrite public memories of the war.

목차

Introduction

Narratives of Return and Just Memory

A Black Soldier's Return

A Child Refugee's Return

Conclusion

Works Cited

키워드

Vietnam War Viet Thanh Nguyen memory narrative of return homeland