Center for Southeast Asia Studies Brown Bag Lunch Talks Series

This talk will consider the use of photography in Khmer Rouge propaganda, especially during the critical years leading up to its seizure of power in Cambodia in 1975. During this period, the role of Norodom Sihanouk as a self-styled film auteur defines both the public image projected by his nemeses, and more generally the importance of photography to the Khmer Rouge aesthetic.

Prof. Michael Mascuch (Ph.D., Cambridge) is currently researching the interpretive contexts and meanings of the archive of portraits of prisoners admitted to S-21, the Khmer Rouge security facility, which are now housed in the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.