Cindy Anh Nguyen
Biography
Cindy Anh Nguyen is Assistant Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles with appointments in Information Studies, Digital Humanities Program, and Asian Languages & Culture. Her book, Bibliotactics: Libraries and the Colonial Public in Vietnam (University of California Press, 2026) uncovers how libraries functioned as both instruments of colonial dominance and an experimental space of public critique. Her transdisciplinary research examines the historical and socio-technical production of knowledge in Southeast Asia through libraries, encyclopedia, visual media, and language through critical approaches. Nguyen bridges academia and the public through her multimedia arts practice, public curriculum and digital humanities pedagogy, and community platforms. Her work has appeared in Journal of Vietnamese Studies, Verge: Studies in Global Asia, Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy, the Vietnamese American Refugee Experience Model Curriculum, Wasafiri, Ajar Press, Diacritics, and exhibitions such as “Textures of Remembrance: Vietnamese Artists and Writers Reflect on the Vietnamese Diaspora”. She is the cofounder of Troubling Narratives, a global digital public research collective committed to work through the methods and ethics of Southeast Asian studies through feminist and decolonial practices.
Books
Libraries in French colonial Vietnam functioned as symbols of Western modernity and infrastructures of colonial knowledge. Yet Vietnamese readers pursued alternative uses of the library that exceeded imperial intentions. Bibliotactics examines the Hanoi and Saigon state libraries in colonial and postcolonial Vietnam, uncovering the emergence of a colonial public who reimagined the political meaning and social space of the library through public critique and day-to-day practice. Comprising government bureaucrats, library personnel, journalists, and everyday library readers, this colonial public debated the role of libraries as educational resource, civilizing instrument, and literary heritage. As the first comprehensive history of the colonial and national library in Asia, this book contributes new insights into publicity, colonial and postcolonial studies, and the histories of Vietnam, libraries, and information. This book uncovers the historical significance of Vietnamese literary life and public spaces for cultural identity, collective belonging, and memory. It opens up conversations on the future of libraries, language, and reading culture in Vietnam and across the diaspora and the urgency of community, grassroots efforts to cultivate reading culture.