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Date 4-21-06
Contact David Tisdale 601.266.4499
Hattiesburg—The
cultural impact of the Vietnam War is far reaching in American society,
and the lessons that came with it are relevant today with the U.S.
military presence in Iraq, said a University of Southern Mississippi
English professor researching what is considered a watershed event
in the nation’s history.
Dr. Maureen
Ryan, the Charles W. Moorman Distinguished Alumni Professor of Humanities
2004-2006 at Southern Miss, discussed her research during a public
lecture Thursday titled “Woodstock Nation: The Counterculture and
the Vietnam Antiwar Movement in American Fiction.”
Her book in
progress, The Other Side of Grief: The Home Front and the Aftermath
in American Narratives of the Vietnam War, scheduled for publication
by the University of Massachusetts Press in 2007, will examine the
cultural texts that continue to emerge from and about America’s
longest war.
“In my examination
of the home front and the so-called ‘aftermath’ of the Vietnam War
as they are presented in both fiction and nonfiction narratives
about that event, I explain and examine the ways in which literary
discourse both reflects and creates our attitudes toward one of
the watershed experiences of late 20th century America,” Ryan said.
“The stream
of cultural texts about the Vietnam War and its aftermath has been
steady since the late 1970s, and it shows no sign of abating. Indeed,
the Vietnam War is inordinately relevant now that we have undertaken
another war in another unfamiliar, distant country. Yet America's
attitude toward its complicated relationship with Vietnam has evolved
over the years, and my analysis of this evolution--and what it illuminates
about contemporary American society--is an important component of
my project."
Ryan argues
that the social and cultural impact of the war at home during the
war and in the years after it were considerable and ongoing for
a variety of reasons: because the war lasted so long and so many
men served; because of the involvement of civilians and the home
front with the peace movement; because it was considered a humiliating
loss that conflated with Watergate and other late 20th century American
social problems and disappointments; because a million Vietnamese
moved to the U.S. as a result of the war; and because baby boomers
think that anything that we experience is important.
“For all these
reasons, Vietnam is the war that won't go away,” Ryan said. “I ask
why and how so?”
English professor
Dr. Jameela Lares, a colleague of Ryan’s at Southern Miss, said
Ryan’s presentation put in focus the complexities of the war and
its impact on multiple facets of American society. “Those of us
who lived through that era are very happy to hear that it was more
complicated than we were told,” Lares said.
Ryan, who received
her undergraduate degree from Penn State University and master's
and doctorate from Temple University, has also served the university
as director of undergraduate and graduate studies for the Department
of English; as assistant dean of the former College of Liberal Arts,
now the College of Arts and Letters; and as associate provost.
Her publications
include Innocence and Estrangement in the Fiction of Jean Stafford
(Louisiana State University Press, 1987); articles on modern and
contemporary American women writers, including Marilynne Robinson,
Lillian Hellman, and Bobbie Ann Mason; and articles on American
women writers and Vietnam, the Vietnam novels of Robert Olen Butler,
aftermath novels by Vietnam veterans, Vietnam POW wives in American
literature, Vietnamese refugees in southern fiction, and the Vietnam
antiwar movement in contemporary American literature.
The Moorman
endowment, named for the late Southern Miss English professor and
vice president emeritus of academic affairs, provides as much as
$30,000 over two years for research projects to selected professors
from among the university's humanities departments, including history,
English, foreign languages and philosophy. Each recipient is appointed
for a two-year term. Ryan is the sixth recipient of this award.
Click to enlarge
Southern Miss English professor Dr. Maureen Ryan makes a point during her lecture Thursday titled ""Woodstock Nation: The Counterculture and the Vietnam Antiwar Movement in American Fiction." Ryan is the Charles W. Moorman Distinguished Alumni Professor of Humanities 2004-2006 at Southern Miss. (Southern Miss Public Relations photo by David Tisdale)
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