This document discusses French perceptions of Angkor Wat during the colonial imagination. It describes an unexpected encounter with Cambodian film director Rithy Panh in Phnom Penh. It then discusses inspiration for a thesis from French explorer Henri Mouhot who discovered Angkor Wat in 1860 and Louis Delaporte, the chief curator of the Musée Indochinois. The role of Parisian museums in shaping French views of Indochina is examined along with the Angkorean wing of the Musée Indochinois and colonial exhibitions that featured Angkor Wat.

1. Voyage to Cambodia:
Visions of Angkor Wat in the French
Colonial Imagination

2. Part 1:
An Unexpected Journey

3. RithyPanh
An internationally and critically acclaimed
Cambodian documentary film director and screenwriter

5. Bophana: Audiovisual Resource Center
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

6. My Co-workers

7. Bumping into…
none other than RithyPanh!

8. Angkor National Park

11. Part II:
Inspiration for a thesis

12. Henri Mouhot
(1826-1861)
“Discovered” Angkor Wat in 1860

13. Louis Delaporte
(1842-1925)
French explorer and chief curator of MuséeIndochinois

14. The Role of Parisian Museums in French
perceptions of Indochina
Angkorean wing in the MuséeIndochois in the
Trocadéro in Paris

15. The Colonial Exhibitions…

16. The reconstruction
of Angkor Wat

17. Restoring and Conserving Angkor
the work of the ÉcoleFrançaised’Extrême Orient

18. Angkor as nationalist symbol