The History of Black Cinema Re-examined, With Jacqueline Stewart

Big Brains

We’re re-releasing this incredibly special episode about the history of Black cinema in honor of Black History month. Just a quick note to say that since this recording Prof. Stewart has been appointed as the Director and President of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Prof. Jacqueline Stewart’s career has examined the histories of overlooked Black filmmakers and Black audiences. Two years ago, the University of Chicago film scholar Stewart won a prestigious MacArthur fellowship for “illuminating the contributions that overlooked Black filmmakers and communities of spectators have made to cinema’s development as an art form.” On this episode, Stewart explores the history of Black cinema and explains how preservation and archiving are not neutral acts, but contribute to how we contextualize and understand Black history.