Race, War & the Cinematic Myth of America:

Dust that Never Settles

Eric Trenkamp

Race, War & the Cinematic Myth of America explores the evolution of the ever-changing image of White superiority in American cinema, which can be traced from the earliest silent Westerns, through decades of war films, and up to the modern day comic book genre. Through provocative and engaging analysis of a wide variety of Hollywood films, Trenkamp demonstrates the industry’s history of popularizing White supremacy and the ways in which these films can act as propaganda to support various dehumanizing U.S. policies, both abroad and at home. Scholars of film studies, comic studies, genre studies, American studies, race studies, pop culture, and history will find this book particularly useful.



BIO

Eric Trenkamp is an award winning filmmaker whose work has been featured on IFC and Current TV. His feature American Bomber won awards at numerous film fests, including the Manhattan Film Festival, Art of Brooklyn Film Festival and Mississippi International Film Festival and is distributed by IndiePix Films. His most recent short, "Park Slope" screened at the FICSAM Mental Health Festival in Faro, Portugal and the Great Lakes Film Festival, among others. He was the Festival Director for the 2016 Art of Brooklyn Film Festival and is a judge for the Sparrow Film Project at the Museum of the Moving Image. His monograph on Hollywood’s history of popularizing White supremacy, Race, War and the Cinematic Myth of America, is published by Rowman & Littlefield. He is the assistant chair of Pratt Institute's Film/Video Department where he also teaches.

Website: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3283287/



Dr. Simanti Lahiri (respondent)

Dr. Simanti Lahiri is a political scientist with expertise in the contentious politics of South Asia, including social movements and political violence. She has also worked on issues of radicalization, extreme tactics, nationalism, and the quality of democracy. She is currently the program coordinator for Student Civic Engagement at Rutgers University–Camden, where she directs the Bonner Program and Certificate in Civic Engagement and Social Change. Her most recent publication is "Hard Choices, Soft Targets: Terror Proscriptions and the Strategic Targeting Decisions of the FTO" (Rebecca Best Coauthor) International Interactions 2021.

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