UC Berkeley

Abstract

Confucian Terrorism: Phan Bội Châu and the Imagining of Modern Vietnam

by

Matthew A Berry

Doctor of Philosophy in History

University of California, Berkeley

Professor Wen-hsin Yeh, Chair

This study considers the life and writings of Phan Bội Châu (1867-1940), a prominent Vietnamese revolutionary and nationalist. Most research on Phan Bội Châu is over forty years old and is contaminated by historiographical prejudices of the Vietnam War period. I seek to re-engage Phan Bội Châu’s writings, activities, and connections by closely analyzing and comparing his texts, using statistical and geographical systems techniques (GIS), and reconsidering previous juridical and historiographical judgments. My dissertation explores nationalism, modernity, comparative religion, literature, history, and law through the life and work of a single individual. The theoretical scope of this dissertation is intentionally broad for two reasons. First, to improve upon work already done on Phan Bội Châu it is necessary to draw on a wider array of resources and insights. Second, I hope to challenge Vietnam’s status as a historiographical peculiarity by rendering Phan Bội Châu’s case comparable with other regional and global examples.

The dissertation contains five chapters. The first is a critical analysis of Democratic Republic of Vietnam and Western research on Phan Bội Châu. I challenge claims that Phan Bội Châu should be interpreted solely as a ‘transitional figure.’ The second chapter investigates Phan Bội Châu’s near-obsession with martyrdom. In it, I explore how Phan weaves together narrative and symbolic strands from Confucian and Catholic repertoires to justify martyrdom on behalf of the Vietnamese nation. The third and fourth chapters provide a detailed account of the famous trial of Phan Bội Châu by the Criminal Commission of Hanoi in 1925. By evaluating the case against Phan Bội Châu in comparison with the research agendas presented in chapter one, I show that both history and law offer flawed ways of interpreting the legacy of a national hero. The fifth chapter presents Phan Bội Châu’s 760-page commentary to the Book of Changes, a classical Confucian text that Phan Bội Châu re-interprets as a structural framework for understanding time, morality, and the inevitability of revolution.