Biography

Jessica Chapman’s specialization is the United States and the World, with particular research emphases on Vietnam, decolonization, and the Cold War. She received a B.A. in history from Valparaiso University in 1999 and a PhD in history from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 2006. Her teaching interests include international history and U.S. foreign relations from the early republic to the present, including the relationship between domestic affairs and foreign policy. Her first book, Cauldron of Resistance: Ngo Dinh Diem, The United States, and 1950s Southern Vietnam, is forthcoming with Cornell University Press. Her new research project explores the commodification of Kenyan runners in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East.

Selected Publications

Cauldron of Resistance: Ngo Dinh Diem, The United States, and 1950s Southern Vietnam (forthcoming with Cornell University Press, Spring 2013)

“Religion, Power, and Legitimacy in Ngô Đình Diệm’s Republic of Vietnam,” in Race, Ethnicity, Religion and the Cold War: A Global Perspective, Philip E. Muehlenbeck, ed. (Vanderbilt University Press, 2012)

“The Sect Crisis of 1955 and the American Commitment to Ngô Đình Diệm,” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 5:1:37-85 (February 2010)

“Staging Democracy: South Vietnam’s 1955 Referendum to Depose Bao Dai,” Diplomatic History 30:4: 671-703 (September 2006)

Theses Advised

Tyler Holden, ’13 – One Country, Watching Television: How Kennedy Became the First Television President

Madeleine Jacobs, ’11 – The 1956 Presidential Election and the Battle for Public Opinion During the 1956 Duez Cana Crisis

Zach Miller, 10 – ‘Take Communism Away from the Communists’: The Early Intellectual Crucible of Walt Whitman Rostow and the States of Economic Growth

Charlie Dougherty, ’09 – The Elusive Peace: Washington, Saigon, and the Search for Peace in Vietnam, 1966-1969