#72: Through a Lens Darkly

Smarty Pants

You've probably seen the photographs that Lynsey Addario has taken, even if you don't necessarily know her name. For more than 20 years, she’s covered life in conflict zones around the world, from Afghanistan under the Taliban and the U.S. invasion of Iraq and its aftermath, to the genocide in Darfur and maternal death in the Philippines—too much suffering, in too many places, to name, or even imagine. But in her images, Addario captures the small joys, too, of the ordinary experiences lived between the cracks of war: children playing, young couples getting married, births, deaths, cooking, going to the movies, even sleeping. In the contrast between these ordinary moments and their extraordinary, often brutal circumstances, Addario manages the impossible, and holds together all the fragments of human life she's witnessed in her two decades of conflict photography.

Visit our episode page for a slideshow of Lynsey Addario’s work.

Go beyond the episode:

• Lynsey Addario’s Of Love and War
• The New York Times cover story about the U.S.-sponsored war in Yemen, with Addario’s photographs (and a note from the writer, Robert F. Worth, about the local networks that kept them safe)
• Read Addario’s memoir, It’s What I Do, and peruse online galleries of her work

Have suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes!

Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman.

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