At the Bull's Head Bookshop in Student Stores on Thursday, Kogan spoke about her experiences as a woman, a photojournalist, a writer and a mother. Reading excerpts and showing slides from her debut book "Shutterbabe: Adventures in Love and War," she told a tale of both caution and inspiration.
Kogan addressed both the sexual and the professional as parts of an ongoing battle. She initially focused, with the aid of her book and her slides, on the conflict in Afghanistan.
"I keep thinking of all the pictures of Afghanis right now that aren't getting into magazines," Kogan said while presenting slides. Behind her loomed a color photograph of a prostrate man, his head a mess of blood, during the 1991 coup in Moscow.
On her current three-week tour, Kogan has been reading about her 1989 sojourn as a photojournalist covering Afghan soldier and from her post-Sept. 11 afterward to "Shutterbabe." She has also been showing slides of a trip that she and her son took to Pakistan last November, where they brought money, supplies, food and toys to children in the Peshwar refugee camps.
"We need to be better informed about other countries and cultures," Kogan said.
The well-traveled former photojournalist recounted stories of junkies in Zurich, Switzerland, orphans in Romania and rhino poachers in Zimbabwe. She also explained early slides of strip clubs and some close-up photos from her senior thesis at Harvard University, where she used her photography to turn the tables on the men who continually approached her.
"Being a woman in daily life is much like being at war sometimes," Kogan said, speaking as the victim of multiple attacks, ranging from mugging to date rape.
"Every single attack that I experienced made me realize that I must be like this poodle walking around with a 'kick-me' sign," Kogan said. "Life became dangerous a priori."
Kogan read excerpts about her struggles as a photographer and a woman with wearing a burka while on the road with Afghan soldiers. Talking openly about her encounters with men, both as lovers and aggressors, Kogan asserted her feminism and her independence.
