The Princeton University Art Museum presents: LIFE Magazine’s Photojournalism and the American Century

Join us for a live webinar roundtable with Princeton faculty members Jeremy Adelman (History), Thomas Y. Levin (German), and Katherine Hill Reischl (Slavic) and the prize-winning documentary photographer Susan Meiselas as they discuss how Life used photographs in its weekly publication, from 1936 to 1972, as a way to establish its view of the world as a first draft of history. 

Consider, for example, coverage of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps at the end of World War II: what did it mean for Life to publish six pages full of detailed, horrible photographs in the midst of a weekly issue dedicated to “The German People”? Another ready example is a story Life undertook at the behest of the Kennedy administration to try to curtail the global spread of Communism in the face of poverty.  

Was Life merely playing the imperialist, or are such global exchanges the basis of something more lasting?

Join the live roundtable at https://princeton.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_UkCswNgJR3KndXYvrGtyKg. (when prompted, click to sign in as “attendee”)

This roundtable is held in conjunction with the exhibition LIFE Magazine and the Power of Photography and made possible in part by support from the Humanities Council’s David A. Gardner ’69 Magic Project, Princeton University. Moderated by Katherine A. Bussard, the Peter C. Bunnell Curator of Photography.