Fifty Years On: New Perspectives on the Vietnam Wars- Harvard GVWSI 2025 Conference

Conference Dates: October 3-4, 2025
Venue: CGIS South, Tsai Auditorium, 1730 Cambridge Street, MA 02138

The Harvard Global Vietnam Wars Studies Initiative (GVWSI) invites you to a two-day conference that brings together informed assessments from around the globe to provide an evidence-based, in-depth exploration of this multifaceted war and its complex legacies.

Fifty years have passed since North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon in 1975, after decades of set-piece battles, guerrilla warfare involving a dozen combatant nations, and overlapping civil conflicts in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Although vigorously debated in the United States, the war’s meanings and implications remain unresolved. Vietnamese and other international perspectives are rarely studied, as most current research focuses primarily on American perceptions, experiences, and memories. As a result, we still struggle to tell the broader tragedy of the conflict, even as its ashes and embers continue to spread across the globe and through generations.

A deeper understanding of the wars’ global impact is vital for history and is also timely and essential for addressing current and future conflicts. Above all, we seek to foster intellectual, historical, and cultural exchanges across nations, communities, and generations with a shared commitment to scholarship, reconciliation, and healing.

Call for Papers Content Priorities

We invite proposals from scholars, researchers, veterans, and practitioners on the following themes:

• New assessments of the war itself— in its human, social, cultural, religious, economic, political, psychological, diplomatic, civilian, and military dimensions, including how these analysis have evolved since 1975.
• Insights from the communist bloc and non-communist allies, illuminating how different sides perceived victory, defeat and the enduring impacts on national identities.
• Analysis of lessons learned by Vietnam, the U.S., and other former allies and adversaries, examining how these experiences have shaped policies, military strategies, and power structures over the past five decades.
• Examination of how the war continues to challenge participating countries in their process of healing, reconciliation, and addressing war legacies in nation-building.
• The role of migration and the Vietnamese diaspora, focusing on their experiences and contributions, as well as their impact on the political, economic, and cultural landscapes of their new countries.

Call for Papers Submission Guidelines:

• Abstract Title
• A 300-word abstract outlining the proposed presentation.
• Brief Biography (max 150 words)

Submission Deadline: February 18, 2025
Notification of Acceptance: By March 31, 2025
Abstract Submission link: click here
Submission Inquiries: Contact us via email at gvwsi@hks.harvard.edu

Final Paper Submission and Presentation Guidelines:

If your submission is accepted, participants planning to attend the conference will be expected to submit a final paper of approximately 2,500–3,000 words. During the conference, participants will be giving 15–20 minute presentation of their final paper as part of their allotted panel, followed by a moderated discussion and Q&A focused on the panel’s topic.