The Politics of Vietnamese Craft

American Diplomacy and Domestication

The Politics of Vietnamese Craft

American Diplomacy and Domestication

Jennifer Way (Author)

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Description

Jennifer Way's study The Politics of Vietnamese Craft uncovers a little-known chapter in the history of American cultural diplomacy, in which Vietnamese craft production was encouraged and shaped by the US State Department as an object for consumption by middle class America.

Way explores how American business and commerce, department stores, the art world and national museums variously guided the marketing and meanings of Vietnamese craft in order to advance American diplomatic and domestic interests. Conversely, American uses of Vietnamese craft provide an example of how the United States aimed to absorb post-colonial South Vietnam into the 'Free World', in a Cold War context of American anxiety about communism spreading throughout Southeast Asia.

Way focuses in particular on the part played by the renowned American designer Russel Wright, contracted by the US International Cooperation Administration's aid programs for South Vietnam to survey the craft industry in South Vietnam and manage its production, distribution and consumption abroad and at home. Way shows how Wright and his staff brought American ideas about Vietnamese history and culture to bear in managing the making of Vietnamese craft.

List of Figures
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations

Introduction: Vietnam at home, 1955-1961
Chapter 1, State Department and United Nations Foundations for Vietnamese Craft Aid
Chapter 2, Designer as Diplomat
Chapter 3, Refugee as Artisan: The Image of Vietnamese Craft
Chapter 4, The U.S., North Vietnam, and South Vietnam: Competing Narratives of Craft
Chapter 5, From Salvaging to Merchandising: Exhibiting Vietnamese Craft for American Consumers
Chapter 6, Artifact, Art, Craft: Displaying and Collecting Different Vietnams

Conclusion
Bibliography
Notes

Product details

Published	03 Oct 2019
Format	Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition	1st
Extent	248
ISBN	9781350007031
Imprint	Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Illustrations	47 BW illus
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing

Author

Jennifer Way

Jennifer Way is Professor of Art History at the Un…

Jennifer Way's The Politics of Vietnamese Craft is an exceptional book ... a necessary extension to studies of Cold War American cultural diplomacy and histories of design and craft ... It could be used as a basis to question the very foundations of the networks that define contemporary Southeast Asian art today.

Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia
Highly recommendable read to anyone interested in the centrality of Vietnamese craft ... Way inventively constructs a monograph that illuminates the political context of craft, art and design from layered perspectives and histories.

The Journal of Modern Craft
Jennifer Way's book on the politics of Vietnamese craft makes a valuable and innovative contribution to the field of craft research, adding a new dimension to the study of the American Cold War through the examination of US craft trade in Southeast Asia ... This is an area of craft that is under-researched, and Way is laying the much-needed foundations upon which further research and discussion of this area may be based.

Craft Research
Jennifer Way's recent book on Vietnamese craft and American diplomacy offers a compelling new perspective on art and politics through Vietnamese “craft aid” in South Vietnam.”

Journal of Vietnamese Studies
Craft is a remarkably sensitive index of culture and politics, and the best scholarship on the subject does full justice to its nuances. Jennifer Way's deeply researched examination of craft politics in Vietnam is just such a book. It is a remarkably timely publication, which considers craft in the context of refugee migration, and also looks at the impact of the tragic American intervention in the country. More than just a focused study of craft's uses and mis-uses in one place, Way's book is a model for modern craft studies worldwide.

Glenn Adamson, Senior Scholar at the Yale Center for British Art, USA
An important and innovative volume that will have wide appeal to scholars of cultural diplomacy, visual culture, U.S. foreign relations, and American Studies.

Laura Belmonte, Professor of History and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech Institute and State University, USA