Professor of History Robert Bezucha pondered whether images of war were seen at the time of publication in the same way they are today.
The professors discussed and responded to a photograph of strewn corpses from the Second Opium War, which took place in the mid-1850s. "This may be the first photo taken of bodies slain in battle immediately after battle," said Bezucha. "The British and French were trying to open up China to the opium trade. The photos were produced, put into albums and sent to British officers in London."
In the image, two dead bodies rest in a lifeless town in ruins. Bezucha wondered if the images are perceived the same way now as they were at the time they were taken. "Did contemporaries see these images as we do?" he questioned.
Professor of German Heidi Gilpin, who stressed the importance of witnessing testimonies of war in order to help foster understanding and perpetuate true accounts, then shifted the focus 140 years ahead to the war in Iraq.
She posited three levels on which witnessing testimony functions. "First, being a witness to one's self," she said. "Second, one's own participation, as a listener, an immediate receiver of testimonies. Third, when the process of witnessing is itself being witnessed."
Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought Lawrence Douglas recalled the central role documentary film footage played in the Nazi war crimes trials. "The prosecution turned to a documentary film at Nuremberg," he said. "The film was called 'Nazi Concentration Camps.' The flatness of the commentary made it so the images were speaking."
Douglas asserted that understanding the images of the Holocaust is essential even if the historical facts are acknowledged. "The meaning of images must always be secured even if what they show cannot be denied," he said.
Professor of Women's and Gender Studies Margaret Hunt then described the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and questioned the completeness of visual representations of war. "It was the tail end of the Tet Offensive," she said. "The mission was to neutralize the area. There were no Viet Cong. [The American soldiers] began shooting the animals and throwing grenades into huts. There were several cases of women and children being shot dead as they fled. At least 20 women were raped. Between 300 and 500 civilians were killed."
Hunt also brought into focus the psychological consequences for the American forces involved in the massacre. "My Lai does not go away. The pictures don't go away," she said. "The pictures do speak in some way to the story, but there's a lot they leave out."
According to Mead Art Museum Director and Chief Curator Jill Meredith, the panel discussion grew out of discussions with organizing curator Carol Solomon Kiefer. The overwhelming faculty response, which included 35 letters concerning the images, also spurred the panel event.
The works in the exhibition include prints, photographs and magazine excerpts that range from the 17th century to the present. The Mead Art Museum purchased some of the works just for this exhibit.
"Like any exhibition, it is a selection and installation that reflects the interests of the curator," Meredith said. "While Dr. Kiefer discussed the choices with many of us, they were her pick. Any one of us might have chosen somewhat differently. Also, the photographs in the museum were in many cases exhibition prints. That is, more recent prints made larger for exhibition purposes-certainly larger than as they appeared in magazines or newspapers. Their seals as well as location on the museum's walls affect their impact on the viewer. In a newspaper, we glance and toss-the image is ephemeral. Here the image may be contemplated: It is monumental, permanent, and in many cases, iconic."
Meredith said that she enjoyed hearing the professors' personal reactions. "I found their observations about the images and their historical implications informative and, at times, quite moving," she said. "It has been exciting to see our colleagues share their reactions in the context of contemporary and historical events, their own scholarship and teaching fields, and personal experiences."
Hunt thought that the exhibit was particularly useful and meaningful given the events in the world currently. "An exhibition that puts other people's pain on view is always morally ambiguous. This is even more true today because of the ability of mass media to broadcast disturbing images around the world to millions in an instant," she said.
Hunt contrasted the images with current battles in Iraq. "The result can easily be a deadening of the moral impulse rather than an incitement to try to cope with the root causes of war-much less intervene to stop current wars. Images like these can also make one feel very helpless. The seemingly unstoppable Battle of Falluja, which has taken up much of my thoughts this week, is a case in point," she said. "I thought the exhibition itself, and the various panel discussions (most notably the panel of veterans) dealt frontally, but also sensitively with these problems-the voyeurism, the despair and so on. But altogether the exhibition and its associated events left me, at least, not feeling as helpless as I sometimes do in the face of the machine of war."