In the Shadow of The Birth of a Nation Racism, Reception and Resistance

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.