About Me

Tiếng Việt | English

I am an M.A. student in ethnomusicology in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University, Bloomington.  I received a B.A. in Biology in 2006 from Wake Forest University, but the discrepancy between that and my current academic work is a story too long to be told here.  If everything goes according to plan, I will immediately continue from my M.A. into the Ph.D. program here as well.

If you were to pin me down to a single focus, it would be research into “music and culture of Vietnam and the Vietnamese diaspora,” although my interests have also led me to look at Asian-Americans generally as well as new media technologies and global media flows.  These broad topics have led me to examine issues concerning identity, representation, politics and power, cultural policy, and meaning production.  Recently, I have even taken an interest in medical ethnomusicology/anthropology, particularly thinking about the ways in which Western medical science might benefit from a broader concept of “quality of life.”

In my time outside of academic scholarship, I am an avid musician performing on both the violin and “traditional” Vietnamese instruments such as dan bau (monochord), dan nhi (two-string fiddle), and dan nguyet (moon-shaped lute).  I have studied violin with Hong Mei Zhou (Winston-Salem Symphony, NC) and Dr. Jacqui Carrasco (Wake Forest University), and I continue to study Vietnamese traditional music with Master Pham Duc Thanh.

Resources

Curriculum Vitae

Contact Me

Twitter: @jasonrnguyen

Email / Google Talk: jrn [at] jrnguyen [dot] com