The Ethnic Transformation of the European Virgin Mary in the Vietnamese Catholic Diaspora

Lunch Lecture by Dr Thien-Huong T. Ninh (California Polytechnic State University).

The lecture

In 1998, upon the 200th anniversary of her apparition, the image of Our Lady of Lavang was transformed from a European woman into a Vietnamese woman. The change was initiated by Vietnamese Catholics in southern California, who then exported the Vietnamized image to Vietnamese Catholic communities in Vietnam and other parts of the world. Today, the image of Our Lady of Lavang as a Vietnamese woman is the only Asian representation that has become global. Throughout Asia, there are local forms of the Virgin Mary but none has catapulted to a global scale as Our Lady of Lavang. This presentation examines how and why she was transformed from a European woman into a Vietnamese woman by Vietnamese Catholics in southern California and the implications of her ethnic image for Global Christianities.

The speaker

Dr Thien-Huong T. Ninh is a lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at California Polytechnic State University. Her research and teaching interests include International Migration, Diaspora, Racial and Ethnic Relations, and Global Christianities. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Southern California (2013) and was a Gaius Charles Bolin Fellow in the Department of Religion at Williams College (2012- 2014).

Lunch will be provided, but registration is required. Please use the registration form below.

About IIAS Lunch Lectures

Every month, an IIAS researcher or visiting scholar will present his or her work-in-progress in an informal setting to colleagues and other interested attendees. IIAS organises these lunch lectures to give the research community the opportunity to freely discuss ongoing research and exchange thoughts and ideas.