The American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) awarded Dominic Pham (CAS ’23) with the presidential undergraduate prize at the organization’s annual conference in Montreal, Canada from April 14 to 17. 

Full disclosure: Dominic Pham served as The Hoya’s Senior Design Editor in Fall 2020, Managing Editor in Spring 2021, Creative Director in Fall 2021 and Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Spring 2022.

The award recognized his honors thesis, titled “The Struggle Continues: Cosmopolitan Encounters and Spatial Disjunctions in Singaporean and Vietnamese Literature,” which focuses on cosmopolitanism in Vietnamese and Singaporean literature. An Asian American Literature class Pham took his freshman year and a class he took on Singaporean literature as a junior studying abroad in Singapore inspired his thesis, which was completed last year. 

Pham, who is now pursuing a Ph.D. in biophysics at Stanford University, said that the decision to focus on Vietnamese literature came in part from his family’s experiences as refugees.  

“Ultimately, I went back to my personal identity and the fact that my family are Vietnamese refugees,” Pham told The Hoya. “I think growing up, I, always in the back of my mind, was interested in these issues of migration, how people move and how people are displaced. And doing that in the context of Southeast Asia made sense so that I could explore my own personal identity at the same time that I was writing this academic piece.”

Pham’s research centered on the issues of migration and identity in the 20th century, examining the idea of a global, cosmopolitan identity connecting others through more than nationality or culture. 

Pham added that his findings did not indicate a universal human experience among the four books he analyzed.

“The argument is like, you can be cosmopolitan, you can have different ties to a lot of different cultures, but that doesn’t mean that you will connect with every single person on a universal level,” Pham said. “And the second finding is that literature helps us fill in that void by allowing us to imagine a world where people are more connected than they actually are.”

Nicoletta Pireddu, the director of the global and comparative literature program, and Philip Kafalas, an associate professor in the department of East Asian languages and cultures, served as Pham’s mentors as he developed his thesis.

Kafalas, who worked with Pham during the first half of his research process, said that Pham’s experience in the biology field was evident as he researched, a fact that set him apart from other students. 

“He worked on trying to refine the theory of cosmopolitanism in view of what he was seeing, and I never really asked him about this, but I always had a hunch because he’s also a biochemistry person,” Kalafas told The Hoya. “And this is what scientists do all the time, right? You always question the theory.”

Pireddu, who worked with Pham during the second half of his thesis, said his research is unique in the way it not only compares two post-independence Singaporean novels with two Vietnamese novels written during the Vietnam War but also looks into the complexities of globalization.

“So it’s not only one way of addressing this issue of globalism but rather he delves into the problematic relationship between different nations, between different ethnicities, colonization, political ideologies, cold wars, created fractures,” Pireddu told The Hoya.“He really asks, ‘What kind of cosmopolitanism can individuals construct when they try to transcend these difficult conditions?’”

Pireddu is active in the ACLA and nominated Pham for the prize along with Kafalas and Nicole Rizzuto, an English professor. She organized a seminar that took place at the ACLA conference and was able to be there when Pham received his award.

“It was all the more touching, to be there to support your student who’s being recognized at the national level,” Pireddu said. “So we were all thrilled and proud.”

Pham added that being recognized by the ACLA and attending the conference was a special experience for him. 

“It was great to have recognition from a larger audience than just me and my committee members,” Pham said. “And I felt very proud of the work I had done my senior year.”