An Evening With Kim Phuc, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador @ Haverford College

In Haverford College's Stokes Auditorium

From the website:

Ms. Phuc is the subject of the iconic 1972 Vietnam War photo by Nick Ut which records the horrific image of a young Vietnamese child (Kim Phuc at age nine) running naked with burns from napalm. The Pulitzer-prize winning photograph is a key image of study in ICPRH204/PEACH204 Picturing War: Goya to Abu Ghraib. Ms. Phuc will discuss the content of the photo and the ways in which she became a victim to the photo. She will discuss how the photo affected the course of her life before and after her defection from Vietnam in 1992. At that time, with the aid of Nancy Pocock, a Canadian Quaker peace activist, Ms. Phuc was granted sanctuary in Canada, where she resides today. Her life story is the subject of a national bestseller by Denise Chong, The Girl in the Picture: The Kim Phuc Story (Penguin, 1999) as well as a 1997 documentary film directed by Shelley Saywell , Kim’s Story: The Road from Vietnam. She is the founder of the Kim Phuc Foundation, which provides support to children of war around the world.

Ms Phuc’s lecture will address the ways in which Nick Ut’s photo was used for political and propaganda purposes in Vietnam and its influence in the United States and around the world during and after the Vietnam War. Her talk will vividly reinforce ideas discussed in the course ICPRH204/PEACH204 Picturing War: Goya to Abu Ghraib regarding the function, power, and influence of images of war. Ms. Phuc’s lecture will be of interest not only to students of Studio and Art History, the new concentration in Peace, Justice and Human Rights, majors in History, Political Science, East Asian Studies, and Quaker Studies, but also of general interest to all members of the Haverford community.

Reception at 8pm in the CPGC Cafe.