Note on Digital Sources

The MIT home page, which is designed to change daily with a different “spotlight” image, is www.web.mit.edu. The course unit of the MIT Open-CourseWare Visualizing Cultures website at the center of the controversy was entitled “Throwing Off Asia,” and the two web pages upon which students centered their protest were entitled “Throwing Off Asia” and “Old China, New Japan.” Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine has archived an October 2005 version of the web pages: “Throwing Off Asia,” www.web.archive.org/web/20060106234320/http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027j/throwing_off_asia/index.html. Based on screenshots circulated at the time of the debate, this 2005 Internet archive version appears to be the closest publicly accessible version to what was debated in April 2006. However, since the Visualizing Cultures website was later modified, it is not possible to ascertain whether this October 2005 archived version was exactly the same version that sparked the controversy. Following the controversy, the website was redesigned and relaunched multiple times, but the older versions are not accessible to the public. Currently, a modified version of the OpenCourse-ware Visualizing Cultures web pages, now entitled “Throwing Off Asia II,” is available at www.ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/throwing_off_asia_02/toa_essay01.html. This version is substantially different from the web pages discussed in April 2006.

The image around which the most heated discussion was held is titled Illustration of the Decapitation of Violent Chinese Soldiers by Utegawa Kokunimasa (October 1894). The image is currently viewable at www.ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/throwing_off_asia_01/2000_380_07_l.html. A Japanese transliteration of the inscription on the wood-block print, taken from a print in the Waseda University Library, is available at f48.aaacafe.ne.jp/~adsawada/siryou/062/66g.html.

On April 25, 2006, the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) sent a letter to the professors and MIT administration summarizing their concerns. This letter was posted on the CSSA website and also published online by the Tech (an MIT student-run newspaper) at tech.mit.edu/V126 /N21/letters21.html. Following discussions with the MIT administration, the CSSA issued a public response to the wider community, available at www.web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/185/cssa_statementpop.html. In 2013, the editors interviewed the then-president of CSSA, the transcript of which is published in this special issue. The editors were unable to obtain an interview with the authors of the Visualizing Cultures web pages.

On April 26, 2006, MIT’s Chancellor Phillip Clay moderated a discussion forum between the professors responsible for the Visualizing Cultures website, the CSSA, and other MIT faculty and administrators. A one-hour video of the meeting taken by an unidentified attendee was formerly hosted at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4181158281491093965#. This video was viewed by the editors and some contributors to this volume in the course of researching their essays, but the video was removed in 2013, and the editors have not been able to find an alternate source or copy.

Official statements from MIT’s Chancellor Phillip L. Clay, President Susan Hockfield, and Professors Dower and Miyagawa are available at www.web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/visualizing-cultures.html. In addition, sixty members of the MIT faculty issued a joint faculty statement, available at www.web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/185/purdue_letterpop.html.

Amid continuing debate and media coverage, the CSSA summarized its role and actions in a statement, “On the ‘Visualizing Cultures’ Controversy and Its Implications,” www.web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/185/cssa.html, which was published alongside the essay of then MIT professor of Chinese history Peter Purdue, “Reflections on the ‘Visualizing Cultures’ Incident,” web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/185/perdue.html in the Tech.

Separately, MIT professor of Chinese media and cultural studies Jing Wang, coeditor of this volume, issued a response available at www.web.mit.edu/fll/www/people/JingWangVCResponse2.shtml. In addition, Professor Perdue wrote an “Open Letter to Chinese Students at MIT,” then posted on the MIT History Department home page, but now hosted at www.docstoc.com/docs/43615036/Open-Letter-to-Chinese-Students...