The Humanities Council will host a public conversation as part of a two-day workshop focusing on the history of photojournalism and its relationship to humanitarianism.
A panel of distinguished photojournalists will join a discussion about the history of photographic reportage, especially reporting of war and atrocity, followed by a reception in the Princeton University Art Museum. Discussants will include Susan Meiselas, Visiting Belknap Fellow in the Humanities Council and Department of English, and Peter van Agtmael, documentary photographer.
The conversation will be moderated by Katherine Bussard, the Peter C. Bunnell Curator of Photography at the Princeton University Art Museum.
Almost from the beginning of war photography in the nineteenth century, observers, activists, and eventually scholars have asked whether photography produces more empathy and understanding, or more apathy and distortion. By the 1970s, especially with the influence of Susan Sontag’s critique of photojournalism and with the rise of human rights movements, the debate moved into high gear. Nowadays, it is once again on display with controversies around the representation of, and control over, reportage of the Syrian War.
A reception in the Museum will follow. Cosponsored by the Program in Journalism.
