War Photography & Memory: Introduction by Shastri Akella
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In her essay “Regarding the Pain of Others”, Sontag talks about how war photographs and other forms of remembrance–such as war memorials and paintings–alter our wartime memories. In responding to Sontag’s complex meditation on modification of memory through objects of remembrance, writers from College Writing at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), used a perspective Sontag offers–such as, beauty in war photos, or the role of shock – to analyze, critically, her essay in the light of a specific context.
Sontag in one of her interviews states that no academic discussion on her writing is complete without an investigation into the photographs she refers to. So each writer incorporated in their response to Sontag’s writing, two to three pictures of a photographer whose work Sontag refers to in the course of her discussion on war photography. The student’s own analysis acted as a meeting ground that brought together the essay and the photographs, thereby, making each piece of writing an active dialog between Sontag, war photograph’s, and the writer’s own voice.
This process of inquiry illuminated the student’s understanding on war, memory, and writing, and pushed the boundaries of what an academic piece of writing can achieve. I hope you enjoy reading these pieces of art as much as my students loved putting them together.
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