As faculty members of MIT, we endorse in the strongest terms the scholarly value of the Visualizing Cultures project directed by Professors John Dower and Shigeru Miyagawa. This prize-winning web site was created by two of the world’s leading scholars. By going to visualizingcultures.mit.edu, readers of this letter can see for themselves how, by bringing together textual explanation with thousands of images, the Website explores in detail the development of Japan’s relationship to Western powers and China since the mid-nineteenth century.

It also evokes broader questions about the cultures of war, imperialism, and nationalism. Many of the subjects it analyzes are painful to recall, but since the authors are professional scholars of the highest caliber, the site in its entirety enlightens everyone who examines it carefully about the deepest questions of social and historical change. Because it brings advanced technology together with humanistic research, it is a jewel of the MIT curriculum, and the OpenCourseWare project makes it available to the entire world.

A small group of individuals took one image on this site out of context and broadcast it across the Internet. By doing so, they fomented an e-mail campaign directed against MIT’s educational mission that quickly exploded out of control into a global incident. The site was temporarily shut down in response to these attacks. Some critics claim that the site endorses Japanese racism and militarism and therefore urge that it be permanently shut down or substantively revised. In fact, the site describes and strongly condemns the racist propaganda that supported Japanese militarism. 

The challenge to this project threatens the core values of MIT’s educational and research mission. We commend the eloquent statement from President Susan Hockfield in support of the project. We call on all interested parties to join with us to ensure that the Visualizing Cultures Website will remain in its entirety and be protected against any future attacks. We also express our strong sympathy to Professors Dower and Miyagawa for the ordeal they have suffered, and reaffirm our commitment to MIT’s basic values of academic freedom and scholarly integrity.

Hal Abelson, Class of 1922 Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Alice Amsden, Barton L. Weller Professor of Political Economy
John Belcher, Class of 1922 Professor of Physics, MacVicar Faculty Fellow
Rafael Luis Bras, Edward A Abdun-Nur Professor Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
David M. Ciarlo, Assistant Professor, History Faculty
Joshua Cohen, Professor of Philosophy, Political Science
Isabelle de Courtivron, A.F. Friedlaender Professor of the Humanities, MacVicar Fellow, Foreign Languages and Literatures
Jesus Del Alamo, Professor of Electrical Engineering, Macvicar Faculty Fellow
Peter Donaldson, Professor of Literature
Herbert H. Einstein, Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Howard Eissenstat, Lecturer, History Faculty
Michael Fischer, Professor of Anthropology and Science Technology Studies
Deborah Fitzgerald, Professor of Science, Technology and Society, Associate Dean, School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Suzanne Flynn, Professor of Linguistics
Daniel Fox, Associate professor of Linguistics
Lorna Gibson, Matoula S. Salapatas Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Chair of the Faculty
Loren Graham, Professor of the History of Science
Stephen Graves, Abraham Siegel Professor of Management
Hugh Gusterson, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Science Studies
Morris Halle, Insitute Professor Emeritus, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
Ellen Harris, Professor of Music
James Harris, Professor Emeritus of Spanish and Linguistics
Wesley Harris, Head, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Irene Heim, Professor of Linguistics
Harold F. Hemond, William E. Leonhard Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Diana Henderson, Associate Professor of Literature, Secretary of the Faculty
Jean E. Jackson, Head, Anthropology
Meg Jacobs, Associate Professor of History
Patrick Jaillet, Edmund K. Turner Professor, Head, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Kenneth Keniston, Mellon Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology, Society
Michael Kenstowicz, Professor of Linguistics
Samuel Jay Keyser, Professor Emeritus, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
George Kocur, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Steven Lerman, Class of 1922 Professor and Director of CECI, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Pauline R. Maier, William R. Kenan Jr Professor of History
Roger G. Mark, Professor of HST and EECS
Anne M. McCants, Associate Professor of History
David A. Mindell, Frances and David Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing
Fred Moavenzadeh, James Mason Crafts Professor
Joel Moses, Institute Professor, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Systems
Dava J. Newman, Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems
Steven E Ostrow, Lecturer, History Faculty
Peter C. Perdue, T.T. and Wei Fong Chao Professor of Asian Civilizations
Ruth Perry, Professor of Literature
David Pesestsky, Ferrari P. Ward Professor of Linguistics
Jeffrey S. Ravel, Associate Professor of History
Norvin Richards, Associate Professor of Linguistics
Harriet Ritvo, Arthur J. Conner Professor of History
Richard J. Samuels, Ford International Professor of Political Science, Director, Center for International Studies
Bish Sanyal, Professor of Urban Planning, Director, SPURS/HHH
Merritt Roe Smith, Leverett Howell and William King Cutten Professor of the History of Technology
Bob Stalnaker, Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy
Edward S. Steinfeld, Associate Professor of Political Science
Peter Temin, Elisha Gray II Professor of Economics
Emma Teng, Associate Professor of Chinese Studies
Bruce Tidor, Professor of Biological Engineering and Computer Science, Associate Chair of the Faculty
Edward Turk, The John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities
Daniele Veneziano, Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Julian Wheatley, Senior Lecturer in Chinese
Ann Wolpert, Director of Libraries
Evan Ziporyn, Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music, Head, Music and Theater Arts