Wednesday, April 26, 2006
shocked by the response from MIT president regarding Japanese woodprints issue
President Hockfield has read your email about images used by VisualizingCultures and has asked me to reply. We appreciate your strong concerns with the images and text on this web site. These images are the subject of academic inquiry. Visualizing Cultures looks at"cultures" in the broadest sense, including cultures of war, race, propagandaand atrocity that we must confront squarely if we are ever to create a betterworld. To date, the model case study has been Japan's emergence as a modern state. Thenewest unit, Ground Zero 1945, addresses the human effects of the atomic bombdropped on Hiroshima. For more information, read an interview with Professor John Dower athttp://web.mit.edu/giving/spectrum/fall03/connecting-cultures.html or visit the web site athttp://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027j/menu/ Professors Dower and Miyagawa are available to discuss these issues in personwith members of the MIT community. Sincerely,
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Note: location changed.
copied from MIT CSSA mailing list
Wed, April 26th, 5:30pm in MIT 14E-310
Dear all:
As you may know that in the past two days, MIT's homepage introduced an
open course of Japanese history and culture, which presents a lot of bias and
misleading pictures about the history shared between China and Japan. A
lot of us had strong feelings for that, and have written to the webmasters
and the institute to protest those materials, and shared our thoughts and
opinions via emails. Some of us had a brief meeting this noon and have
reached a couple of agreements and suggestions here:
1) We will meet those two professors of the open course tomorrow (Wed,
April 26th) 5:30pm in E51. This meeting is NOT organized by MIT CSSA, it is
self-organized meeting to express our feelings and protest the
inapporpriate materials in the website of open course ware (OCW), and the
exhibition of MIT FMA.
2) We strongly encourage each of you who had feelings or opinions on this
open course and exhibition to come to meet the professors and speak out. So pl
s do come
even if you cannot stay for the whole thing or have to be late.
If you have time conflict please send guozhan@mit.edu and
hidyhu@mit.edu your opinions, and circulate the info to other friends.
In addition, you can forward us the email you wrote to the institute, we
will try to organize our thoughts and find out what we want the institute
to do on this issue.
3) Please send your friends, not necessary MIT students those info, and
let us hear their opinions and let them help protest those inappropriate
materials at MIT.
http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027j/throwing_off_asia/2000_380_07_l.html
http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027j/throwing_off_asia/toa_core_04.html
http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027j/throwing_off_asia/toa_core_02.html
4) In the meanwhile, you and your friends can help protest
those inappropriate materials by writing to MIT OCW at
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/jsp/feedback.jsp?Referer=
and write to President Susan Hockfield at hockfield@mit.edu
or call her office at (617)253-0148 to express your feelings.
Thank you very much for your feedback and supporting.
下面是我刚发给MIT校长,及抄送历史系主任,哲学系主任,和那个日本叫兽的Email. 综合
了一下大家的意见和朋友的修改,起草的下面的Email, 欢迎大家修改.
大家团结一致,可以起草一封联合的抗议信,大家签名,一定要让那个小日本道歉!
把MIT告上法庭也是一个选择,告MIT种族歧视,什么学术自由,那也有个限度,MIT有种就贴
一贴纳粹屠杀犹太人的照片,世贸大厦倒塌的照片,再美化一下看看有什么反应!
很喜欢有一哥们说的,这是在辱没咱们的祖先,是可忍,孰不可忍!!!
当有人在挖你们家祖坟, 你还没点血性,那他妈还叫男人吗!!!
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Dear Dr. Hockfield,
I am a Chinese Assistant Professor at XXX University. I am very shocked and
upset to see the webpages that Professor Shigery Miyagawa posted for his
course at your university, MIT. In these webpages, Professor Miyagawa posted a
number of drawings, which he called ARTS and many of these drawings depict
beheading of Chinese civilians and soldiers by Japanese captives during the
1894-1895 Japanese invasion war to China. The texts and drawings humiliate
Chinese people by arrogantly glorifying the fascism and atrocity of Japanese
army. The link to the webpages is as follows:
(http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027j/throwing_off_asia/toa_core_01.html)
Prof. Miyagawa claimed that these paintings are “arts” and only used to
illustrate the thoughts and/or stereotypes of the Japanese in the period of
imperial Japan. However, as a Chinese, I feel these so-called arts are very
offensive and insulting. It is NOT acceptable to glorify brutality of the
Japanese army and propagate the killing of innocent civilians. These images
remind people from all over the world of the heinous crimes that imperial
Japan committed to Chinese, Korean, people from other Asian countries during
their notorious invasion and occupation of these countries in the last century
. The drawings themselves have already showed the brutality and atrocity of
the war, which may be used to educate people to avoid a rehearsal of such a
horrible history. However, the whole contexts including these drawings do NOT
show any introspection and are NOT neutral either for educational purposes,
rather, the contexts express an appreciation of these inhuman and beast-like
activities on Chinese and convey a message to discriminate and humiliate a
whole race – Chinese. So I wonder what the purpose of these drawings is, to
educate MIT students and/or Boston community to appreciate these brutal
actions of Japanese army and simulate these actions, or just simply to
discriminate Chinese???
Let us consider some analogous examples here. Would you and MIT allow or
encourage to publicly exhibit any so-called arts that glorify the history of
Pear Harbor and that beautify the victory of Japanese army by killing and
murdering American soldiers and citizens on December 7, 1941??? Would you and
MIT allow or encourage to publish any so-called arts that glorify Nazi’s
history of killing Jewish people and other European people in World War II???
Would you and MIT allow or encourage to publicly post any so-called arts that
glorify the 911 and beautify the victory of the terrorists by killing and
murdering American civilians on September 11, 2001??? In my eyes, these things
certainly are NOT arts, and I feel they are insults and humiliations to the
ART and, more importantly, they are huge disrespects and insults to millions
of the victims and their families and offspring.
If you and MIT really think those paintings at the above MIT webpages are ARTS
, why don’t you select some pictures from the following website which shows
what “ARTWORKS” that Japanese army did in Nanjing Massacre in 1937 and post
them. According to Prof. Miyagawa, those real pictures are ARTS too!
http://www.historywiz.com/nanjing-mm.htm
I cannot believe that MIT, one of the most prestigious universities in the
world, could allow to post such webpages with an appreciation of the war
violence and discrimination over a whole race. I seriously request removal of
these offensive and misleading webpages from MIT. I also request a sincere
apology from Prof. Miyagawa and MIT for publicly posting such discriminating
and insulting webpages on me and the whole Chinese community of all over the
world. I reserve all the right including the protest and lawsuit against Prof.
Miyagawa and MIT for the discrimination and insults that the webpages above
at MIT put on me and the whole Chinese Community in the whole world. I also
send this email to Dr. Yablo, Dr. Ritvo, and Prof. Miyagawa, but I would like
to bring this issue up to you as well. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
XXX XXX
A CHINESE (Here I don't represent XXX University. I represent myself and my
Chinese Fellows!)
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/visualizing-cultures.html
Statements on Visualizing Cultures
April 27, 2006
MIT's home page recently featured a research and educational project -- Visualizing Cultures -- that has generated a great deal of concern and debate. The following statements speak to these issues.
MIT statement
Statement from Professors Dower and Miyagawa
MIT statement
Visualizing Cultures is an interdisciplinary research project, history course and educational outreach program that uses historical images and texts of different cultures in order to learn from them. We deeply regret that a section of this web site has caused distress and pain to members of the Chinese community.
Visualizing Cultures is an important and pioneering undertaking by two esteemed members of our faculty, Professor John Dower of the history faculty and Professor Shigeru Miyagawa of linguistics and of foreign languages and literatures. Professors Dower and Miyagawa have MIT's strongest support.
One section of the web site -- Throwing Off Asia -- authored by Professor Dower, refers to the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 and displays images of Japanese wood-block prints that were used as wartime propaganda. Some of these images show the atrocities of war and are examples of how societies use visual imagery as propaganda to further their political agendas. The use of these historical images is not an endorsement of the events depicted.
Many readers, however, have indicated that the purpose of the project is not sufficiently clear to counteract the negative messages within the historical images portrayed on the site. Professors Dower and Miyagawa have been meeting with members of the MIT Chinese community to discuss their concerns and have temporarily taken down the web site while these concerns are being addressed.
The response from some outside the community, on the other hand, has been inappropriate and antithetical to the mission and spirit of MIT and of any university. This is not only unfair to our colleagues, but contrary to the very essence of the university as a place for the free exploration of ideas and the embrace of intellectual and cultural diversity. In the spirit of collaboration, MIT encourages an open and constructive dialogue.
We need to preserve the ability to confront the difficult parts of human history if we are to learn from them.
Phillip L. Clay
Chancellor
Statement from Professors Dower and Miyagawa
We wish to express our deep regret over the emotional distress caused by some of the imagery and are genuinely sorry that the web site has caused pain within the Chinese community. This was completely contrary to our intention. Our purpose is to look at history in the broadest possible manner and to try to learn from this.
One section of the project displays images of Japanese wood-block prints that were used as propaganda during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 and are examples of how societies use visual imagery to further their political agendas. These historical images do not reflect our beliefs. To the contrary, our intent was to illuminate aspects of the human experience -- including imperialism, racism, violence and war -- that we must confront squarely if we are to create a better world. These complex issues are addressed in the long text that accompanies the images. We must learn from history if we are to have a better future.
Many people who have seen the web site, however, have indicated that the purpose of the project is not sufficiently clear to counteract the negative messages contained in the historical images portrayed on the site. Acknowledging this, we have been meeting with members of the Chinese community and others here at MIT to discuss how we might present these materials in a way that more effectively fosters understanding across cultures. In the meantime, we have temporarily taken down this web site while these community concerns are being addressed. We wish to make clear that this is a scholarly research project, and there is no art exhibition associated with it.
We are grateful to those members of the MIT Chinese community who have met with us to address this issue and help heal our community. In these discussions, we have been guided by the central values of the university: the free exploration of ideas and the embrace of intellectual and cultural diversity. We are committed to those ideals.
John W. Dower
Professor of History
Shigeru Miyagawa
Professor of Linguistics and of Foreign Languages and Literatures
http://mitbbs.com/article_t/ChinaNews/5723624.html
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