Travis Thai H. Pham (’28), a prospective double major in Moral & Political Economy and Classics, has been awarded the distinguished Chloe Center Summer Research Grant for his project, “Crossing Diasporic Borders and Fragmented Memories from Troy to Vietnam.” Building on the “Solidarities, Social Movements, and Citizenship” track under the Chloe Center for the Critical Study of Immigration & Citizenship, Pham traces two interwoven strands of classical reception.

First, he explores how Homeric figures — Achilles, Odysseus, and their epic worlds — were reimagined in Western public discourse and popular culture during the late-twentieth-century Vietnam War era, a resonance captured in Jonathan Shay’s reflective works “Achilles in Vietnam” and “Odysseus in America.” Next, he turns to the post-war Vietnamese American diaspora, showing how poets such as Ocean Vuong (“Night Sky With Exit Wounds”) and Vi Khi Nao (“War is Not My Mother”) recast Telemachus, Sappho, and other classical voices to create liminal, transnational spaces that broaden the traditional Greco-Roman canon to Vietnam and the larger Southeast Asia region.

The project first took root in Nandini Pandey’s first-year seminar “AS.001.179 – Race Before Race: Difference and Diversity in the Ancient Mediterranean” and Pham’s subsequent involvement in her “AS.040.420 – Classics Research Lab, Race in Antiquity Project (RAP).” By placing cultural commentary beside bilingual verse, Pham—himself a Vietnamese American—aims to show how ancient epics have shaped public conversation while giving diasporic writers a nuanced language to share their stories of resilience. Drawing on English and Vietnamese sources, he hopes to offer a fresh perspective on the enduring resonance of Greco-Roman antiquity in contemporary explorations of identity, historicity, and community.