Lectures & Presentations
Invited Lectures
2023 ‘Unsettled Topographies; or, Ethnomusicology’s Productive Discomfort with the Global History of Music’. Lecture, Taiwan Society for Music Studies, Taipei.
2023 ‘Sound and Water Retain Longing: Sonic and Textual Intimacies in Vietnamese and Vietnamese Diasporic Expression’. Lecture, National Tsing-Hua University, Hsin-chu, Taiwan.
2023 ‘Viet Nam Echoes: Page, Song, and Stage’. Panel presentation organized with Leon Le and Vân-Ánh Võ at the University of California, Irvine.
2023 ‘Retaining Longing in the Southeast Asian Archive: Sonic Materiality in Vietnamese Diasporic Memorialization’. Lecture, Southeast Asian Archive, University of California, Irvine.
2022 ‘Seeding the Tradition: Musical Creativity in Southern Vietnam’. Fulbright University Vietnam World Beyond a Book Lecture Series, online.
2022 ‘Talk Art Series 2022: Alexander M. Cannon’. Vietnamese American Society for Creative Arts and Music.
2021 ‘Tradition Never Dies: 'Lắng Nghe’, Active Listening, and Activism in Contemporary Vietnam’. Friday-at-Noon Zoom Lecture, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, online.
2017 Participant, Expanding Heritage Roundtable, Endangered Heritage Conference, University of Michigan.
2016‘Musical Creativity in Ethnomusicology; or, How to Make Traditional Music Tin Nóng (Hot News) Again’. Department of Music, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.
2015 ‘The Place of Ethnomusicology and World Music in American Music Education’. Hubei University of Education (Wuhan).
2015 ‘Exploring the Place and Role of Chinese Musical Sounds in Southern Vietnamese Traditional Music’. Wuhan Conservatory of Music and School of Music, Central China Normal University (Wuhan).
2015 ‘Về phương pháp nghiên cứu: Một số ý kiến’ [Regarding methods of conducting research: A few ideas]. Ho Chi Minh City Conservatory.
2015 ‘From Ban Ca Chia to Pan-Asian Experimentation: The Place of Chinese Music in Southern Vietnamese Traditional Music’. Confucius Institute, University of Michigan.
2014 ‘Music as an Instrument of Diversity’. Lee Honors College Lyceum Lecture Series, Western Michigan University.
2014 ‘Creativity and Traditional Music in Post-socialist Vietnam’. Vietnam Studies Group Workshop on Vietnamese Identities, Temple University.
2014 ‘UNESCO, Traditional Music and Intangible Cultural Heritage in Vietnam’. Bucknell University.
2014 ‘Creative Deployments and Postsocialist Imaginings: Southern Vietnamese Traditional Music in the Twenty-First Century’. Meerwarth Lecture, Department of Anthropology, Bucknell University.
2014 ‘Battleground of Creativities: Vietnamese Tài Tử Music in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries’. Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan.
2013 ‘Sustainability and Charisma in Southern Vietnamese Traditional Music’. New Musicology: Theories, Methods and Resources Symposium, Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing.
2013 ‘Reclaiming “Soul” through Traditional Music in Việt Nam and the Vietnamese Diaspora’. Shanghai Conservatory of Music and School of Music, Central China Normal University (Wuhan).
2011 ‘Preservation through Individual (and Guided) Innovation: Toward a Theory of the Charismatic Musician of Vietnamese Traditional Music’. Southeast Asia: Text, Ritual and Performance Program, University of California, Riverside.
2010 Participant, World Day for Audiovisual Heritage Roundtable Discussion, School of Information, University of Michigan.
2009 ‘Understanding the Dynamics of the Cross-Cultural Research Experience: Đờn ca tài tử in an American’s Ears’. Center for Vietnamese and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City.
Conference Presentations
2022. 'Listening to Music Beyond Music Studies: Some Critiques for "Culture" in Development Theory'. Paper presented at the International Council for Traditional Music Biennial Congress, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa.
2021 Roundtable organizer and participant, ‘Rethinking or Rejecting Mode?’ Rethinking Musical Mode Symposium, online.
2021 ‘Reckoning with Creativity for Ethnomusicology’s Future’. Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference, online.
2021 ‘Exploring Daoist Approaches to Music Expression in Contemporary Vietnamese Music for Diversion’. IMS Study Group on the Global History of Music Conference: Music in the Pacific World: Change and Exchange Through Sound and Memory, online.
2021 Roundtable organizer and participant, ‘Embracing a Decentered Approach in the Borderlands of Ethnomusicology’. ICTM Dialogues Series, online.
2021 ‘Rejecting Creativity, Repairing Creativities: Experimenting with Traditional Music in Contemporary Southern Vietnam’. TTI Conference: Transformations of Musical Creativity in the 21st Century, online.
2021 Roundtable participant, ‘Ethnomusicology Forum: 30th Birthday Celebration’. British Forum for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference, online.
2021 Roundtable organiser, ‘Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Workshop’. British Forum for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference, online.
2019 Roundtable participant, ‘Decolonizing British and North American Ethnomusicologies’. Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference, Bloomington, Indiana.
2019 Roundtable participant, President’s Roundtable, ‘Queering the Field: Sounding Out Ethnomusicology’. Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference, Bloomington, Indiana.
2019 ‘Boundaries at the Water’s Edge: Maintaining Community through Nature and Sound in Vietnamese Music’. American Musicological Society Annual Conference, Boston.
2019 ‘Development, Rupture and Loss in Southern Vietnamese Music Practice’. International Council for Traditional Music Biennial Congress, Bangkok.
2018 ‘Theories of Water in Ethnographies of Asia’. Third Forum of the International Council for Traditional Music, Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing.
2018 ‘Development, Rupture and Loss in Southern Vietnamese Music Practice’. British Forum for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference, Newcastle University.
2017 ‘Metaphor, Creativity, and Disruption in Southern Vietnamese Traditional Music’. Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference, Denver.
2016 Roundtable Presenter and Organizer, ‘Legacies for Vietnamese Music Scholarship in the Smithsonian Archives’. Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference, Washington, DC.
2016 ‘Making Truth and Planting Flowers: Musical Creativity in Contemporary Southern Vietnam’. Engaging with Vietnam Conference, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.
2015 ‘Metaphors of Creative Practice: Navigating Roots and Foliage in Southern Vietnamese Traditional Music’. Tracking the Creative Process Conference, IRCAM, Paris.
2015 ‘Emergent Creativity and Cultural Heritage in Southern Vietnamese Traditional Music’. International Council for Traditional Music World Congress, Astana.
2014 ‘From Bản cà chía to Pan-Asian Experimentation: Chinese Music as Other in Southern Vietnamese Traditional Music’. Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Philadelphia.
2013 ‘Building “Soul”: The Transnational Negotiation of Vietnamese Traditional Music in Diaspora’. Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, San Diego.
2012 ‘The Post-Socialist Self in Transnational Alliance: Negotiating Traditional Music in Contemporary Vietnam’. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco.
2012 ‘Emerging from the Ruin: The Production of Knowledge and Traditional Music in Southern Vietnam’. Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference, New Orleans.
2012 ‘French Colonialism, Modernity and Competence among Performers of Southern Vietnamese Traditional Music’. Third International Symposium of the International Council on Traditional Music Study Group for the Musics of East Asia, Chinese University of Hong Kong.
2011 ‘Postsocialism in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Traditional Music and Trans-national Alliance’. International Council for Traditional Music World Conference, Memorial University, St. John’s, Newfoundland.
2011 ‘Pan-Asianism in Vietnam: the Case of the Asian Zither Festival’. Performing Arts in Contemporary Asia: Tradition and Travel Conference, Royal Holloway, University of London.
2010 ‘The Sonic Production of Southern Vietnam through Charismatic Don ca tai tu Performance’. Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference, University of California, Los Angeles.
2010 ‘The Charismatic Musician’s Construction of Tradition and the Nation: The Case of Vietnamese “National Music”’. The Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism Annual Conference, London School of Economics and Political Science.
2010 ‘Emerging from the Ruin: The Production of Musical Knowledge and Traditional Music in Southern Vietnam’. British Forum for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference, University of Oxford.
2010 ‘The Sonic Evocation of the “Real” Southern Vietnamese Experience: Hybridity and Mimesis in Đờn ca tài tử Performance’. Twelfth Annual Southeast Asian Studies Graduate Conference, Cornell University.
2010 ‘Preserving Traditional Music in the “Trans-nation”: Investigating the Practices of a Musician of Nhạc tài tử Nam bộ’. Beyond Borders: Alternative Voices and Histories of the Vietnamese Diaspora Conference, University of Washington.
2009 ‘Methods of Preserving Nhã nhạc and Nhạc tài tử: Reconsidering the Role of UNESCO and the Vietnamese Diaspora in Contemporary Vietnam’. Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference, Mexico City, Mexico.
2008 ‘Reorienting the Voices in Nhạc cách mạng: Constructing Identity in Vietnamese Revolutionary Songs’. Asia-Pacific Week Conference and Seminar, The Australian National University.
2007 ‘Redefining Methods of Molding the Nation: The Case of Singaporean Parody’. Mid-West Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference, Indiana State University.
2006 ‘Memory and Modernity: Application of the Past and Present in the Music of Lam Truong’. Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute Student Conference, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
