Panivong Norindr

Summary Statement of Research Interests

Postcolonial theory, film, and cultural studies. French colonial ideology in architecture, film and literature in Indochina.

Research Specialties

Professor Norindr’s areas of research include comparative literature, postcolonial theory, contemporary French studies and French and Southeast Asian cinema.

Conference Presentations

• “Cosmic Intensities: Scoring Lam Lê’s Poussière d’empire.” Hear Viêt Film , Symposium on Music in Trans-Vietnamese Film Talk/Oral Presentation, UCLA Center for Musical Humanities , Invited, Los Angeles, 10/21/2022 – 10/22/2022
• “Anna Moï and the Predicament of the Postcolonial Writer” , Visibilité, invisibilité des femmes de lettres françaises ou francophones SymposiumTalk/Oral Presentation, USC/Université de Paris-Marne la Vallée, USC, 04/19/2018 – 04/20/2018
• “Political Cinema/ Militant Cinema in the Wake of May 68: The Formal Experimentations of Cinélutte” , 20th and 21st Century French and Francophone Studies International ColloquiumTalk/Oral Presentation, Brown University, Providence, RI, 04/12/2018 – 04/14/2018
• “Spatial Politics in Rithy Panh’s Un Barrage contre le Pacifique” , Southeast Asian Cinemas Research SymposiumTalk/Oral Presentation, UCLA, Invited, Los Angeles, 04/28/2017 – 04/29/2017
• “Malraux en Amérique” , Colloque “Malraux aujourd’hui.” Talk/Oral Presentation, Sciences-Po, Invited, Paris, France, 11/23/2016 – 11/24/2016
• The Force of the Image: History, Trauma, and Filmwork in Rithy Panh’s Movies , Text, Ritual, Performance Graduate Student ConferenceKeynote Lecture, UC-Riverside, Invited, UC-RIverside, 06/05/2015
• Loin du Vietnam à Besançon: Deterritorializing Vietnam and Fighting Capital , 20th/21st Century French & Francophone Studies International ColloquiumTalk/Oral Presentation, Columbia University/ CUNY/ NYU, The Graduate Center/ City University of New York, 03/07/2014
• The Fantasies of Sustainable Tourism in Laos: Luang Prabang, World Heritage Site, Ecotourist Destination and Queer City , Tourist UtopiasTalk/Oral Presentation, University o Macau, Invited, Macau, China, 04/11/2013 – 04/13/2013
• “’Un homme est mort’: Graphic and Filmic Traces of French Militant Activism in 1950s France.” , 20th and 21st Century French and Francophone Studies International Colloquium. Talk/Oral Presentation, Georgia Institute of Technology , Atlanta, 03/28/2013 – 03/30/2013
• “On History, French Colonialism and Immigration: the Politics of Memory and Forgetting and the Cité Nationale de l’Histoire de l’Immigration.” , International Conference on ” Objects, Memory, and Cultural Identity in (Re)Construction.” Lecture/Seminar, Feng Chia University, Invited, Taiwan, 06/26/2008 – 06/29/2008

Other Presentations

• “On the Archeological and Memorializing Cinema of Rithy Panh”, [invited lecture] Diaspora and Asian Cinema” Series, Taiwan, 2007-2008

Book Chapters

• Norindr, P. (2012). “L’apparition de l’industrie cinématographique laotienne.”. Le Cinéma d’Asie du Sud-Est. pp. 236-242. Lyon: Asieexpo Edition.
• Norindr, P. (2009). “Ho Chi Minh: On the Margin of French Political Culture.”. pp. 102-114. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
• Norindr, P. (2008). “Angkor filmée: De l’exotisme à l’identité nationale.”. pp. 136-150. Paris: Les Editions Autrement.
• Norindr, P. (2008). “Enlisting Early Cinema in the Service of “la plus grande France.”. pp. 109-117. New Barnet: John Libbey Publishing Ltd..
• Norindr, P. (2006). “The Fascination for Angkor Wat and the Ideology of the Visible. pp. 54-70. London, UK / New York, NY: Routledge.
• Norindr, P. (2006). “Vietnam: Chronicles of Old and New.”. pp. p.45-57. Oxford, United Kingdom: Contemporary Asian Cinema: Popular Culture in a Global Frame/Berg Publishers.
• Norindr, P. (2006). The Fascination for Angkor and the Ideology of the Visible. pp. p.54-70. London, UK / New York, NY: Routledge.
• Norindr, P. (2005). Vietnam. (Vol. p. 110) London, UK / New York, NY: Routledge.
• Norindr, P. (2004). “‘La Trace Lumière’: Early Cinema and Colonial Propaganda in French Indochina.”. pp. p. 329-339.. Lausanne, Switzerland: Le Cinématographe, nouvelle technologie du XXe siècle/Payot.
• Norindr, P. (2001). “The Postcolonial Cinema of Lam Le: Screens, the Sacred, and the Unhomely in Poussière d’empire.”. pp. p. 143-157. New York: Of Vietnam: Identities in Dialogue/Palgrave.
• Norindr, P. (1996). “La plus grande France: French Cultural Identity and Nation-Building under Mitterrand”. pp. p. 233-258.. Minneapolis, MN: Identity Papers: Scenes of Contested Nationhood in 20th Century France/University of Minnesota Press.
• Norindr, P. (1996). “Filmic Memorial and Colonial Blues: Indochina in Contemporary French Cinema. pp. p. 120-146.. Austin, Texas: Cinema, Colonialism, Postcolonialism: Perspectives from the French and Francophone World/University of Texas Press.
• Norindr, P. (1995). “L’Indochinois dans l’imaginaire occidental”. (Vol. 33-38.) Paris, France: Nous et l’Autre: Scènes et Types./Syros.
• Norindr, P. (1994). “‘Coming Home’ on The Fourth of July: Constructing Immigrant Identities”. pp. p. 233-250.. Displacements: Cultural Identity in Question/Indiana University Press.

Journal Article

• Norindr, P. (2018). “The Future of Lao Cinema: The New Wave”. Visual Anthropology. Vol. 31 (1-2), pp. 14-33.
• Norindr, P. (2017). “André Malraux écrivain (post)colonial”. Présence d’André Malraux. (14), pp. 178-189.
• Norindr, P. (2012). “The Cinematic Practice of a ‘Cinéaste Ordinaire’: Abdellatif Kechiche and French Political Cinema.”. Contemporary French and Francophone Studies. Vol. 16 (1), pp. 55-68.
• Norindr, P. (2011). “The Sounds of Everyday Life in Rithy Panh’s Documentaries.”. French Forum. Vol. 35 (2-3), pp. 181-190.
• Norindr, P. (2009). “Incorporating Indigenous Soldiers in the Space of the French Nation: Rachid Bouchareb’s Indigènes.”. Yale French Studies. Vol. 115, pp. 126-140.
• Norindr, P. (2008). “On Photography, History and Affect: Re-Narrating the Political Life of a Laotian Subject.”. Historical Reflexions. Vol. 34 (1), pp. 89-103.
• Norindr, P. (2004). “Edward Said’s Legacy for French and Francophone Studies.”. Francophone Postcolonial Studies/Society for Francophone Postcolonial Studies. Vol. Vol 2.2, pp. pp.69-74..
• Norindr, P. (2001). “Aestheticizing Urban Space: Modernity in Postcolonial Hanoi and Saigon.”. L’Esprit Créateur/Department of French, University of Minnesota. Vol. Vol. XLI (Fall 2001), pp. 73-87..
• Norindr, P. (1999). “Mourning, Memorials, and Filmic Traces: Reinscribing the ‘Corps Étrangers’ and Unknown Soldiers in Bertrand Tavernier’s Films. Studies in Twentieth Century Literature/University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Vol. Vol. 23.1 (Winter 1999), pp. 117-141..
• Norindr, P. (1997). “‘Popularizing’ French Culture: The Bibliotheque de France.”. Sites: The Journal of Contemporary French Studies/Taylor & Francis. Vol. Vol. 1 (Spring 1997), pp. 93-108.
• Norindr, P. (1995). “Representing Indochina: The French Colonial Phantasmatic and the Exposition Internationale Coloniale de Paris.”. French Cultural Studies/Sage Publications. Vol. Vol. 6.16 (February 1995), pp. 35-60..
• Norindr, P. (1993). “Errances” and Memories in Marguerite Duras’s Colonial Cities.”. Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies. Vol. Vol. 5.3, pp. pp. 52-79..

• University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Fellow at the Center for Twentieth Century Studies, 1996-1997
• Fellow at the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1992-1993
• University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Fellow at the Center for Twentieth Century Studies, 1990-1991

Other Service to the University

• NEH funded curriculum, “Images out of Time: Visual and Material Culture in a Digital Age”. Core Project Faculty, 08/2022 – 07/2025

Editorships and Editorial Boards

• Editorial Board Member, Nouvelles Etudes Francophones, 2004 –
• Editorial Board Member, Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, 2003 –

Professional Offices

• Western United States Regional Delegate, Modern Language Association, 12/27/2009 – 01/15/2012

Professional Memberships

• Modern Language Association, 1988 – 2012
• American Comparative Literature Association, 2010-2011
• DOMITOR, 2001 – 2007