We are thrilled to announce the arrival of Canadian Literature, Issue 246, Refugee Worldmaking: Canada and the Afterlives of the Vietnam War. Guest Editor Y-Dang Troeung writes in her editorial:
To what extent do the unresolved inheritances of past wars and conflicts become legible only insofar as they offer “lessons” for the contemporary moment? And to what degree is it even possible to cite Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos as a meaningful lesson or cautionary tale for the present when we have yet to adequately look at the example itself, on its own terms? Such rationales also rely upon liberal positivist assumptions of Enlightenment progress, which as critical theorist Alexander Weheliye argues, presuppose “that suffering must always follow the path of wounded attachments in search of recognition from the liberal state” (14). This “liberal notion of wounding” (14) confers legitimacy onto the site of injury only insofar as it illuminates a larger structural pattern. The “exampling” or “lessonification” of suffering also temporally demarcates the event of wars abroad as something that is over and done with, rather than something that is structurally endemic to the enduring imperial conquests of US empire.
– Y-Dang Troeung, “On Refugee Worldmaking“
This issue also features:
- Articles by Wesley Attewell and Danielle Wong, Timothy August, Jason Coe, Lindsay Diehl, and erin Khuê Ninh
- A Forum on “Remembering Cambodian Border Camps, 40 Years Later” by Y-Dang Troeung, Rithy Panh, Colin Grafton, Phala Chea, Rotha Mok, and FONKi Yav
- A Forum on “Worlds Lost and Found: On the Poetics of Hoa Nguyen” by Y-Dang Troeung, Bronwen Tate, Claire Farley, Fred Wah, Joseph Ianni, Kim Jacobs-Beck, Michael Cavuto, Paul Tran, Stephen Collis, and Sydney Van To
- Reviews by Keva X. Bui, Lina Chhun, Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi, Marianne Hirsch, and Van Anh Tran
The new issue can be ordered through our online store. Happy reading!