Subject Librarian
Lucinda M. Hall
Contact:
Evans Map Room, Baker-Berry Library
Dartmouth College
25 N Main ST
Hanover, NH 03755
Dartmouth College
25 N Main ST
Hanover, NH 03755
(603) 646-0962
Website Skype Contact: d1128r8@kiewit.dartmouth.edu
Course description
This course surveys the evolution of race and representation in visual media. Special attention will be given to black subjects and the socio-economic, historical and political factors that feed into depictions of black life, dominant tropes within these historic depictions, and the aesthetics of emergent voices that help to shape a new black subjectivity on screen. Students are encouraged to draw connections between discourse about black subjectivity with that of identities through doing “close readings” of screen representations and images. In their final projects, students write about and create work relating to black subjects or the broader theme of race and representation in visual media.
[Source: ORC/Catalog, 08/09/2023]; Dist:ART; WCult:CI
In the Library's collections
You can use one of these subject headings to start your research in the library's online catalog:
- african americans in motion picturesCall number range is PN 1995.9 .N4 on Baker Level 4.
- african american women in motion picturesCall number range is PN 1995.9 .N4 on Baker Level 4.
- minorities in mass mediaThis is a more general subject heading to use.
- minorities in motion picturesCall number range is PN 1995.9 .M56 on Baker Level 4.
Introductory reading(s)
The 50 most influential Black films: a celebration of African-American talent, determination, and creativity by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .N4 B43 2001ISBN: 9780806521336
Blackface: reflections on African-Americans and the movies by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .N4 G46 2002ISBN: 9780815411949In a year that has seen African-American actors receive more top honors than ever, Blackface revisits the efforts of black filmmakers and the portrayal of African-Americans in cinema. As a film critic for the Village Voice, Nelson George has analyzed films and reported on the careers of black directors and actors; as the screenplay writer for Strictly Business and the co-author and executive producer for CB4, George experienced Hollywood from the inside, meeting with studio execs and creating movies that didn't turn out as he hoped. ...
Filming difference: actors, directors, producers, and writers on gender, race, and sexuality in film by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .S62 F55 2009ISBN: 9780292719743Addressing representation and identity in a variety of production styles and genres, including experimental film and documentary, independent and mainstream film, and television drama, Filming Difference poses fundamental questions about the ways in which the art and craft of filmmaking force creative people to confront stereotypes and examine their own identities while representing the complexities of their subjects. ...
Historical dictionary of African American cinema by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781442247017Publication Date: 2nd ed.As early as 1909, African Americans were utilizing the new medium of cinema to catalogue the world around them, using the film camera as a device to capture their lives and their history. The daunting subject of race and ethnicity permeated life in America at the turn of the twentieth century and due to the effect of certain early films, specific television images, and an often-biased news media, it still plagues us today. As new technologies bring the power of the moving image to the masses, African Americans will shoot and edit on laptop computers and share their stories with a global audience via the World Wide Web. These independently produced visions will add to the diverse cache of African American images being displayed on an ever-expanding silver screen. This wide range of stories, topics, views, and genres will finally give the world a glimpse of African American life that has long been ignored and has yet to be seen. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of African American Cinema covers its history through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. ...
Reel inequality: Hollywood actors and racism by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780813586328When the 2016 Oscar acting nominations all went to whites for the second consecutive year, #OscarsSoWhite became a trending topic. Yet these enduring racial biases afflict not only the Academy Awards, but also Hollywood as a whole. Why do actors of color, despite exhibiting talent and bankability, continue to lag behind white actors in presence and prominence? Reel Inequality examines the structural barriers minority actors face in Hollywood, while shedding light on how they survive in a racist industry. ...
Selected book title(s)
African American actresses: the struggle for visibility, 1900-1960 by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .N4 R42 2010ISBN: 9780253221926Nine actresses, from Madame Sul-Te-Wan in Birth of a Nation (1915) to Ethel Waters in Member of the Wedding (1952), are profiled in African American Actresses. Charlene Regester poses questions about prevailing racial politics, on-screen and off-screen identities, and black stardom and white stardom. She reveals how these women fought for their roles as well as what they compromised (or didn't compromise). ...
From Sambo to Superspade: the Black experience in motion pictures by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .N4 L4ISBN: 9780395194027
Horror noire: Blacks in American horror films from the 1890s to present by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .H6 M43 2011ISBN: 9780415880206From King Kong to Candyman, the boundary-pushing genre of the horror film has always been a site for provocative explorations of race in American popular culture. In Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from 1890's to Present, Robin R. Means Coleman traces the history of notable characterizations of blackness in horror cinema, and examines key levels of black participation on screen and behind the camera. She argues that horror offers a representational space for black people to challenge the more negative, or racist, images seen in other media outlets, and to portray greater diversity within the concept of blackness itself. ...
Looking at the stars: Black celebrity journalism in Jim Crow America by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780803299924As early as 1900, when moving-picture and recording technologies began to bolster entertainment-based leisure markets, journalists catapulted entertainers to godlike status, heralding their achievements as paragons of American self-determination. Not surprisingly, mainstream newspapers failed to cover black entertainers, whose "inherent inferiority" precluded them from achieving such high cultural status. Yet those same celebrities came alive in the pages of black press publications written by and for members of urban black communities. In Looking at the Stars Carrie Teresa explores the meaning of celebrity as expressed by black journalists writing against the backdrop of Jim Crow-era segregation. ...
Misogynoir transformed :Black women’s digital resistance by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781479803392Where racism and sexism meet-an understanding of anti-Black misogyny When Moya Bailey first coined the term misogynoir, she defined it as the ways anti-Black and misogynistic representation shape broader ideas about Black women, particularly in visual culture and digital spaces. She had no idea that the term would go viral, touching a cultural nerve and quickly entering into the lexicon. ...
Racing the Great White Way: Black performance, Eugene O'Neill, and the transformation of Broadway by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780472075782The early drama of Eugene O'Neill, with its emphasis on racial themes and conflicts, opened up extraordinary opportunities for Black performers to challenge racist structures in modern theater and cinema. By adapting O'Neill's dramatic writing--changing scripts to omit offensive epithets, inserting African American music and dance, or including citations of Black internationalism--theater artists of color have used O'Neill's texts to raze barriers in American and transatlantic theater. Challenging the widely accepted idea that Broadway was the white-hot creative engine of U.S. theater during the early 20th century, Katie N. Johnson reveals a far more complex system of exchanges between the Broadway establishment and a vibrant Black theater scene in New York and beyond to chart a new history of American and transnational theater. ...- Reel racism: confronting Hollywood's construction of Afro-American culture byCall Number: Baker-Berry PN1995.9.N4 R59 2000ISBN: 9780813367101Reel Racism: Confronting Hollywood's Construction of Afro-American Culture goes beyond reflection theories of the media to examine cinema's active participation in the operations of racism --a complex process rooted in the dynamics of representation. ...
Regeneration: Black cinema, 1898 1971 by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .B585 R44 2022ISBN: 9781636810515From the dawn of the medium onward, Black filmmakers have helped define American cinema. Black performers, producers and directors--Bert Williams, Oscar Micheaux, Herb Jeffries, Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge, Ruby Dee and William Greaves, to name just a few--had a vast and resounding impact. Black film artists not only developed an enduring independent tradition but also transformed mainstream Hollywood, fueled and reflected sociopolitical movements, captured Black experience in all its robust complexity, and influenced generations to come. ...
To find an image: Black films from Uncle Tom to Super Fly by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .N4 M8ISBN: 9780672517457
Other library resource(s)
African American cinema from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286The category “African American Cinema” presents important conceptual challenges for scholars, critics, and moviegoers. Before laying out those challenges, though, it is important to note that African American cinema is often thought of as part of American cinema, while at the same time, African American cinema is also often thought of as part of a global black diasporic cinema.
Afro promo by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #9461ISBN: 9780976523949A collection of 30 trailers for films starring, directed by, and/or marketed to African Americans from the years 1952-1976.
Encyclopedia of African American culture and history by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780028658162Publication Date: 2nd ed.This is a five-volume set and supplement covering all aspects of the African-American experience from 1619 to the present day. Where the first edition concentrated on the United States, this new edition is more global in focus. ...
The HistoryMakers digital archive by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe HistoryMakers is a non-profit institution whose purpose is to record, preserve and disseminate the content of video oral history interviews highlighting the accomplishments of individual African Americans and African-American-led groups and movements. The Archive aims is to provide a unique scholarly and educational resource for exploring African American history and culture. It is unique among collections of African American heritage because of its large and varied scope, with interviewees from across the United States, from a variety of fields, and with memories stretching from the 1890s to the present. Rather than focus on one particular part of a person’s life or a single subject, such as a career or participation in the civil rights movement, the interviews are life oral histories covering the person’s entire span of memories as well as his or her own family’s oral history.
Media and the affective life of slavery by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781517910402Amid fervent conversations about anti-racism and police violence, Media and the Affective Life of Slavery delivers vital new ideas about how our feelings about race are governed and normalized by our media landscape. Allison Page examines U.S. media from the 1960s to today, analyzing how media culture instructs viewers to act and feel in accordance with new racial norms created for an era supposedly defined by an end to legal racism. ...
Finding newspaper articles for older events, happenings, etc.
To find newspaper articles, you can search individual databases such as Factiva, the Newsstream databases or Business Source Ultimate. If you want older newspaper articles, you can search the various historical newspapers we have in the collections. Here is a list of historical newspapers we have.
Or you go to the Library catalog and search using the Newspaper link at the top of the page. You can also start your search in the box at the top of the page for scholarly articles.
Proquest historical newspapers by Call Number: Electronic resourcesA collection of major regional and ethnic newspapers from their beginning date to a date in the near past. The New York Times goes until 3 years ago, while the Boston Globe only goes to 1989. The Chicago Defender goes from 1905 to 1975.
You can search all of the historical newspapers together or just search within one specific title.
Chronicling America: historic American newspapers by Call Number: Electronic resourceThis database allows you to search American historic newspaper pages from 1789-1963. You can also use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
This database is good for finding smaller city and town newspapers not covered elsewhere.
- Newspaper source plus byCall Number: Electronic resourceProvides cover-to-cover full text for 23 national (U.S.) and international newspapers, including USA Today, The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, The Times (London), The Toronto Star, etc.
The database also contains selected full text from more than 200 regional (U.S.) newspapers.
In addition, full text television & radio news transcripts are provided from CBS News, FOX News, NPR, etc. 
America's historical newspapers including Early American Newspapers series, 1-13, 1730-1922Call Number: Electronic resourceA digital collection of daily and weekly newspapers for various places in the United States.
Finding scholarly articles & journal title(s)
You can find scholarly literature about African-Americans in cinema in a variety of journals. However, if you want to do targeted searching, you can use a subject specific database such as Film & Television Literature Index. We have one journal which looks exclusively at Black cinema. It is listed below. You can also use the search box at the top of the page or Web of Science.
Black cameraCall Number: Electronic journalBlack Camera is devoted to the study and documentation of the black cinematic experience and is the only scholarly film journal of its kind in the United States. It regularly features essays and interviews that engage film in social as well as political distribution, and production of film in local, regional, national, and transnational settings and environments.
Black studies centerCall Number: Electronic resourceThis fully cross-searchable gateway to Black Studies includes scholarly essays, recent periodicals, historical newspaper articles, and more.
Film & television literature indexCall Number: Electronic resourceThis index covers over 300 journal and magazine titles for film and television reviews, scholarly and critical analysis of cinema and television, and articles of popular interest about film and television. About half the journals and magazines are film periodicals and the other half cover film and television with some regularity. Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews.
Web of science citation databases by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.
Internet resource(s)
- Diverse RepresentationDiverse Representation provides a comprehensive database of African-American agents, attorneys, managers and publicists working in the sports and entertainment industry throughout the country. Discussions surrounding diversity in the sports and entertainment industry need to be all-encompassing and include conversations about racial discrepancies when it comes to the representation of talent and professional athletes.
- The Foundation for the Augmentation of African-Americans in Film (FAAAF)
The Foundation’s mission is to identify, inspire and prepare the next generation of African-American filmmakers as they continue to influence, craft and develop the evolving images of African-American people in cinema and television. - Hollywood Diversity Report from UCLAThe reports primarily examine the relationship between diversity and the bottom line in the entertainment industry.
- NAACP Image AwardsSpanning 60 categories, the NAACP Image Awards celebrates outstanding achievements of people of color in the arts—television, music, literature, and film—and also honors individuals and groups who promote social justice through creative endeavors.
- NAACP Media DiversityThe NAACP has fought against negative portrayals of people of color in film and television since Birth of A Nation in 1915. Today the NAACP Hollywood Bureau deals with issues of diversity programming and minority employment in Hollywood, and oversees the production of the NAACP Image Awards.
Citing and Tracking Your Bibliographic References
Use this guide to help you learn how to correctly cite and keep track of the references you find for your research.
Keeping up with Film Studies journal literature
Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for all facets of Film Studies? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's, you can download and read the articles you want from the journals for which we have subscriptions.
You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.
Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's also available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.