John W. Dower - Visualizing Cultures

Visualizing Cultures

"Visualizing Cultures", a course that Dower has taught at MIT since 2003 with Shigeru Miyagawa, discusses how images shape American and Japanese societies. In April 2006, the OpenCourseWare website of "Visualizing Cultures" was announced on the main page of the MIT website, causing a stir among some Chinese students at MIT that found the material offensive. The material included woodblock prints produced in Japan as propaganda during the Chinese-Japanese War of 1894–1895 that portrayed Japanese soldiers beheading "violent Chinese soldiers." The Japanese-born Miyagawa received death threats. In response, the authors temporarily removed the course from OpenCourseWare and released a statement, as did the MIT Administration. After a week, the course authors agreed to include additional context in controversial sections, and put the course back online.