Drew Gilpin Faust, dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and the Lincoln Professor of History in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, asks "What does one do in the aftermath of death or conflict?" She comments that, throughout the conference, panelists have referred to this aspect of the war zone as recovery, reconstruction, and resetting.

She notes that it has often been said "to the women belongs the weeping," a reminder that, throughout history, memory and mourning have been seen as a very gendered dimension of warfare.

Faust then introduces the panelists.