In the Shadow of The Birth of a Nation

Melvyn Stokes is Professor of Film History, University College London, UK. He is the author of D. W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation”: A History of “The Most Controversial Movie of All Time” (2007) and several articles on D. W. Griffith, including “Race, Politics and Censorship: D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation in France, 1916−1923” (Cinema Journal, 2010). In 2015, he was the curator for the British Film Institute’s D. W. Griffith season. He has published 2 other books – Gilda (Palgrave/BFI, 2010) and American History through Hollywood Film (2013) – and edited a further 12 Paul McEwan is Professor of Media and Communication and Film Studies at Muhlenberg College, USA. He is the author of The Birth of a Nation (Palgrave/BFI, 2015), Cinema’s Original Sin: D. W. Griffith, American Racism, and the Rise of Film Culture (2022) and several articles and chapters on D. W. Griffith, including “The Legacyof Intolerance” in A Companion to D. W. Griffith (2018). He is also the author of Bruce McDonald’s Hard Core Logo (2011) and other essays on Canadian cinema.

• Chapter 1: The Architects of The Birth of a Nation: Thomas Dixon, Jr. and David Wark Griffith.- Chapter 2: Blackface, Disguise and Invisibility in the Reception of The Birth of a Nation.- Chapter 3: The Birth of a Nation's “melodrama of pathos and action” : a tale of “national rebirth”.- Chapter 4: The Battle of Petersburg: Griffith’s “big scenes”.- Chapter 5: The Birth of a Nation Footage We Do Not Want to Find.- Chapter 6: Fixing The Birth of a Nation?: Hampton Institute and The New Era.- Chapter 7: A Most Serious Loss in Business”: Race, Citizenship and Protest in New Haven, Connecticut.- Chapter 8: Resisting The Birth of a Nation in Virginia.- Chapter 9: "At this time in this city”: Black Atlanta and the Premiere of The Birth of a Nation.- Chapter 10: The Meaning of Emancipation: African American Memory as a Challenge to The Birth of a Nation.- Chapter 11: Transatlantic “Structural Amnesia”: The Birth of A Nation in Britain 1915-16.- Chapter 12: Black Horror on the Rhine”: D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation and the French-occupied Rhineland after World War I.- Chapter 13: The Influence of The Birth of a Nation on South Africa: Film Culture and Race.- Chapter 14: “Should it Not Therefore Be Banned?”: Screening and Broadcasting The Birth of a Nation in Britain.- Chapter 15: “Still a North and a South”: The Birth of a Nation and National Trauma.