Seen through the Camera Obscura: Life Photographs of the Korean War and Cold War Anxiety of the American Self

Abstract:The Korean War as seen and shown by Life's photographic eye constitutes a contested geography in mapping the Cold War and locating America's place in it. Seen through the camera obscura of Life, Korea is conceived as a "terra incognita" of American imagination, and in turn, the magazine as the self-proclaimed national looking glass proves itself to be an interesting peep-box—a kaleidoscope of the American ways of "seeing" the war in Korea, the Cold War, and Americans themselves in the world. Specifically, the article situates Life's correspondent David Douglas Duncan's photo-essays on the Korean War in the intersections of American and Korean cultural histories, examining them through the lens of Cold War liberalism, which she argues taps deeper into the American frontier myth.