Panel: Vietnam Shadows

This audiovisual recording from March 21, 2000 as part of the 31st annual UND Writers Conference: “Writing War” features Arnold Isaacs, Barbara Sonneborn, John Balaban, and Robert Olen Butler forming the panel “Vietnam Shadows.” The panelists discuss the legacy of the Vietnam war, the unrecognized social problems following the war, the social damages of war, generational understanding of the Vietnam war, cultural portrayal of the war, notions of otherness, the Gulf War, the difficulty for veterans to talk about war, and film and literary representation of war.

Moderated by Ian Swanson.

Reading: Robert Olen Butler

In this audiovisual recording from March 22, 2000 as part of the 31st annual UND Writers Conference: “Writing War,” Robert Olen Butler reads from Mr. Spaceman. Butler also responds to audience questions about the positive reception of his work about Vietnam by Vietnamese people and writing in female point of view.

Panel: Imagining the Enemy

This audiovisual recording from March 22, 2000 as part of the 31st annual UND Writers Conference: “Writing War” features Barbara Sonneborn, Helen Fremont, John Balaban, Louis Simpson, and Robert Olen Butler forming the panel “Imagining the Enemy.” The panelists discuss their notion of “enemy” during war time, their involvement with World War II and Vietnam, politics of war, the abstraction of the enemy, teaching patriotism, notions of otherness and self, perpetuation of racism and oppression, and justification of war.

Moderator: Janet Kelly Moen

Reading: Helen Fremont

In this audiovisual recording from March 22, 2000 as part of the 31st annual UND Writers Conference: “Writing War,” Helen Fremont reads from her memoir After Long Silence. Fremont also discusses her family history, her relationships with Holocaust survivors, her parents' notions of religion and identity during the Holocaust, connecting the prosecutions of homosexual and Jewish people in Nazi Germany to modern oppression in the United States, particularly concerning same-sex marriage, the moral implication of telling other people's stories, and her experience with psychiatric and spiritual counsel.

Reading: Louis Simpson

In this audiovisual recording from March 22, 2000 as part of the 31st annual UND Writers Conference: “Writing War,” Louis Simpson reads a selection of his poetry. Simpson reads “Carentan O Carentan,” “The Battle,” “The Bird,” “A Story About Chicken Soup,” “The Appointment,” “To The Western World,” “Walt Whitman at Bear Mountain,” “The Inner Part,” “Baruch,” “A Wandering Life,” “The owner of the house,” “Kaimana Beach,” “With Best Wishes,” and “Variations on a Theme by Shostakovich Galich.”

Introduced by Susan Yuzna.

Panel: Who is the Enemy

This audiovisual recording from March 23, 2000 as part of the 31st annual UND Writers Conference: “Writing War” features Eavan Boland, Ha Jin, Helen Fremont, Louis Simpson, and Tessa Bridal forming the panel “Who is the Enemy?” The panelists discuss political and guerrilla warfare, peaceful resolution of disputes, the connection between capitalism and military action, establishing community through work and art rather than conflict, inspiring young people with the arts, deciding to work in academia, and the notion of giving back.

Moderator: Laurel Reuter.

Reading: Tessa Bridal

In this audiovisual recording from March 23, 2000 as part of the 31st annual UND Writers Conference: “Writing War,” Tessa Bridal reads from The Tree of Red Stars. Bridal also responds to audience questions about the translation of her work, how experience informs her work, repression in South American writing, and the challenges of historical writing.

Introduced by Elizabeth Hampsten.

Reading: Eavan Boland

In this audiovisual recording from March 23, 2000 as part of the 31st annual UND Writers Conference: “Writing War,” Eavan Boland reads a selection of her prose and poetry. Boland reads from Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time, “That the Science of Cartography is Limited,” “The Pomegranate,” “Lava Cameo,” “Love,” “Writing in a Time of Violence,” “Code,” and “The Necessity for Irony.”

Panel: Writing War: Reflections and Responses

This audiovisual recording from March 24, 2000 as part of the 31st annual UND Writers Conference: “Writing War” features Arnold Isaacs, Eavan Boland, and Ha Jin forming the panel “Writing War: Reflections and Responses.” The panelists discuss literary responses to war on an international scale, why the Korean War was overlooked at the conference and in a larger national conversation, censorship, the origins of morality, economic issues in war, the impact of war on women, and the role of the writer in processing war.

Moderator: Susan Yuzna.

Reading: Arnold Isaacs

In this audiovisual recording from March 24, 2000 as part of the 31st annual UND Writers Conference: “Writing War,” Arnold Isaacs reads a selection of his work. Isaacs reads from Without Honor, Vietnam Shadows, “Andre's Blues,” and “A Letter from India.” Isaacs also responds to audience questions about how he ends his work and the surge of literature about the Holocaust.

Introduced by Mike Jacobs.

Reading: Ha Jin

In this audiovisual recording from March 24, 2000 as part of the 31st annual UND Writers Conference: “Writing War,” Ha Jin reads a selection of his poetry and short fiction. Ha reads the poems “Dead Soldier's Poem,” “The Photograph,” and “My Knowledge of the Russian Language” and excerpts from the story “The Russian Prisoner.”

Introduced by Ian Swanson.