Screening Race and Difference (M. Bernstein & D. White)

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The Screening Race initiative, directed by Professors Dana White and Matthew Bernstein, entails a year-long film and lecture series concerning Hollywood films that focus on race relations and Race films, that is, films made explicitly for black audiences, often by black film-makers. This initiative draws upon White and Bernstein’s collaborative NEH-funded project, “Screening Race and Difference.” The project relates to their planned book Segregated Cinema in a Southern City: Atlanta 1895 to 1962 and will have special relevance for the anticipated civil rights museum in Atlanta. RDI support is included for staff assistance, procuring of films, logistics, and associated project costs. This spring and fall, Professor Matthew Berstein will participate in a lecture series on film and television versions of the lynching of Leo Frank at the Bremen Jewish Museum. http://www.thebreman.org/progevents/special_exhib.htm#film

Accomplishments in academic year 2007-2008

• The RDI “Screening Race” program, directed by Professors Mathew Bernstein, Film Studies, and Dana White, ILA, continued the screening of films through the Spring semester.
• They held several lectures including one by Jacqueline Stewart on The World of Spencer Williams, Race Film Pilgrim; Charles Musser on Revisiting the Touchy Subject of Race: Al Jolson and the Jazz Singer, as well as showing a series of 9 films on sports and social change, introduced by Professors Peter Dowell and Dana F. White.
• This year they will wrap up the series at the Breman with lectures and screenings of TV programs about the Leo Frank case.
• They planed a short series to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the International Refugee Committee, with films on refugee emergencies.  Films including In this World (Afghanistan); God Grew Tired of Us (lost boys of Sudan); The Agronomist (Haiti); Blood Diamond (Sierra Leone); The Killing Fields (Cambodia).  Each film will be introduced by a member of the IRC, discussing IRC's role.
• In the spring, they brought a series of films to campus from the traveling version of the Human Rights Watch film festival, which will tie in with RDIs plans for the Solinger exhibits and a workshop on Incarceration and Human Rights.