Viet Thanh Nguyen installed as Aerol Arnold Chair of English
Viet Thanh Nguyen, professor of English and American studies and ethnicity, was installed as the Aerol Arnold Chair of English at a Feb. 28 ceremony at USC’s University Club.
In her remarks, USC Dornsife Dean Amber D. Miller noted Nguyen’s importance to the College and his broader influence as a scholar.
“There is no doubt that Professor Nguyen’s academic and creative success adds prestige to our USC Dornsife community,” Miller said. “But we also recognize him … for his commitment to creating impact widely, as an engaged — and intellectually engaging — citizen.
From left, USC Dornsife Dean Amber D. Miller, Viet Thanh Nguyen and USC Provost Michael Quick.
“He is challenging society to think about big issues with an elevated, liberal arts mindset.”
Nguyen’s first novel, The Sympathizer (Grove/Atlantic, 2015) was a New York Times bestselling novel and won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It also garnered the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, an Edgar Award for Best First Novel from the Mystery Writers of America, and numerous other awards, and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction.
Nguyen’s second novel, Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (Harvard University Press, 2016), is the critical bookend opposite The Sympathizer and was a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction.
His most recent book, The Refugees (Grove Press, 2017), is a short story collection receiving critical acclaim.
His teaching and service awards include the Mellon Mentoring Award for Faculty Mentoring Graduate Students, the Albert S. Raubenheimer Distinguished Junior Faculty Award for outstanding research, teaching and service, the General Education Teaching Award, the Resident Faculty of the Year Award, and the Provost’s Prize for Teaching with Technology.
Nguyen is a critic at large for the Los Angeles Times and has written for the New York Times, Time, The Guardian, The Atlantic, among other venues. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley’s undergraduate and doctoral programs, he has been a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the Fine Arts Work Center.