War and Digital Archives: The Israel-Gaza War and Beyond (2024-2025)
This project examined the relationship between war, visual media and archiving through the lens of the Israel-Gaza war, with a focus on how conflicts are recorded and preserved in digital and social media. Team members explored the history and function of wartime visual archives, from institutional repositories to crowdsourced collections, raising questions about what counts as an archive, who benefits from it and who is excluded. Students engaged with Israeli and Palestinian institutional archives, as well as social media documentation, to analyze the possibilities and limitations of treating digital material as historical record or legal evidence.
Over the course of the year, students studied best practices in social media data collection, visual analysis and archival methods, then applied these skills to develop independent projects. Informed by conversations with scholars, artists and activists working with conflict archives, they curated their own digital collections and wrote short, publishable essays situating their findings in broader debates about memory, power and representation. The project not only deepened understanding of how wars are documented but also contributed to emerging discussions about the preservation and use of digital archives in scholarship, advocacy and justice.
Timing
Fall 2024 – Summer 2025