Cambodia and the Politics of Aesthetics

This book illuminates developments in contemporary Cambodia with political and aesthetic theory. It analyses the country "s violent transition from socialism to capitalism through an innovative method that combines the aesthetic approach and critical theory. To understand the particularities of the country "s transition and Cambodia "s unfolding encounter with neoliberal capitalism, the author pursues the circuits of desire connecting the constellation of objects and relations, which he identifies as Cambodia. The book explores the fantasies generated by these circuits of desire, tracking the consequences of these shared imaginings in the political, literary and economic realms. A creative combination of auto-ethnography, critical theory, and area studies and the analysis of a historical moment, this book will be of interest to academics working on comparative politics, Asian studies, holocaust studies, critical theory, and in the politics of aesthetics.