To the editor,
Your recent Back to School edition (September 1) includes a fascinating photograph of some students gathered at the gates of a concentration camp, grinning at the camera like a gaggle of tourists at Disneyworld. It appears to be advertising some kind of a cultural literacy course for Saint Mary's. I'm not sure whether to read the ad as snooty or "we're pleased you find this picture disturbing because we're demonstrating the right of the fine artist to stage whatever they want in whatever context they choose" or simply as I first thought: "Here's an art history course for, and by, the desperately ignorant."
Either way, The Coast did right to run the ad. It's an interesting sign of the times and should spur some fruitful debate.
By Emanuel Jannasch