The Architects of Dignity: Disha Karnad Jani Interviews Kevin Pham

In Theory: The JHI Blog Podcast

Disha Karnad Jani interviews Kevin Pham, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam, about his recent book, The Architects of Dignity: Vietnamese Visions of Decolonization (Oxford University Press, 2024). In his book, Pham traces the evolution of Vietnamese political thought through six figures, Phan Bội Châu, Phan Chu Trinh, Nguyễn An Ninh, Phạm Quỳnh, Hồ Chí Minh, and Nguyễn Mạnh Tường. He explores how across the 19th and 20th centuries, as generations of Vietnamese thinkers responded to and organized against French and US colonialism, they debated distinct and powerful ways to conceptualize politics, mobilize their people, organize their society, and build a nation through decolonization.