Bryan Jack | Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (original) (raw)
Books by Bryan Jack
Hollywood films have been influential in the portrayal and representation of race relations in th... more Hollywood films have been influential in the portrayal and representation of race relations in the South and how African Americans are cinematically depicted in history, from The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Gone with the Wind (1939) to The Help (2011) and 12 Years a Slave (2013). With an ability to reach mass audiences, films represent the power to influence and shape the public's understanding of our country's past, creating lasting images -- both real and imagined -- in American culture.
In Southern History on Screen: Race and Rights, 1976--2016, editor Bryan Jack brings together essays from an international roster of scholars to provide new critical perspectives on Hollywood's relationships between historical films, Southern history, identity, and the portrayal of Jim Crow--era segregation. This collection analyzes films through the lens of religion, politics, race, sex, and class, building a comprehensive look at the South as seen on screen. By illuminating depictions of the southern belle in Gone with the Wind, the religious rhetoric of southern white Christians and the progressive identity of the "white heroes" in A Time to Kill (1996) and Mississippi Burning (1988), as well as many other archetypes found across films, this book explores the intersection between film, historical memory, and southern identity.
University of Missouri Press, 2007
In the aftermath of the Civil War, thousands of formerly enslaved people made their way from the ... more In the aftermath of the Civil War, thousands of formerly enslaved people made their way from the South to the Kansas plains. Called "Exodusters," they were searching for their own promised land. This book tells the story of this American exodus as it played out in St. Louis, a key stop in the journey west.
Encyclopedia Entry by Bryan Jack
Cities in American Political History, 2011
Conference Presentations by Bryan Jack
This paper examines popular culture depictions of East St. Louis, Illinois, arguing that popular ... more This paper examines popular culture depictions of East St. Louis, Illinois, arguing that popular culture codes East St. Louis as a "black place" with "black problems."
Papers by Bryan Jack
Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies, 2019
The Historic Markers project was implemented in the mid 20th century in St. Louis, Missouri to ma... more The Historic Markers project was implemented in the mid 20th century in St. Louis, Missouri to mark sites of historic significance. This article studies the program to analyze how historical memory is created in a community, and how history is constructed by those in power, often to convey a positive view of the past
Civil war book review, 2015
For the past five years, American historians have been knee-deep in the American Civil War. The 1... more For the past five years, American historians have been knee-deep in the American Civil War. The 150th anniversary of this historical moment has brought on a deluge of writing on the subject; an exhilarating, exhausting experience. A mountain of work on the war now strains already groaning library shelves. The result, however, has yielded some surprises. Whereas an earlier generation of scholars interpreted the war as a necessary, noble effort to end slavery and bring the country in line with its highest ideals, historians are now more circumspect about the struggle.(1) Earlier debates about whether the Union government ended slavery, or whether black slaves did the heavy lifting themselves, has given way to a more nuanced understanding of causation.(2) Historians have augmented a focus on emancipation and the application of national power in the American South, with a more expansive historical horizon that now includes the history of Native Americans and the republic's western territories.(3) Even the war's end has received due attention and worthwhile complication.(4) All of this literature has pulled at the threads of a story we thought we knew. What's more, this work has opened up the tantalising possibility that as historians turn their attention to the period that followed the Civil War, the story of Reconstruction might be just as thoughtfully reexamined. We ought to be careful about what we wish for. If the history of the Civil War remains the beating heart of America's civic religion, the history of what followed that conflict, Reconstruction, has long been the republic's cautionary tale. No matter the generation, Reconstruction has been a darker moment in which Americans have found abundant tragedy. For scholars in the early 20th century-reared on stories of lost causes and craven attempts by northerners, who were hellbent on turning a racial order upside down-Reconstruction served as a story of overweening federal power.(5) For scholars who experienced the civil rights movement, Reconstruction was tragic, not because emancipated African Americans were elevated above their rightful station, but because of endemic white violence.(6) By the last decades of the 20th century, historians of Reconstruction adopted a broader view on the period, creating a rich literature that demonstrated the chaotic way in which African Americans battled against their former owners, various levels of government, internal contradictions and the inconsistencies of capitalism, all to secure a meaningful freedom.(7)
Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Dec 1, 2016
Journal of American History, 2008
Hollywood films have been influential in the portrayal and representation of race relations in th... more Hollywood films have been influential in the portrayal and representation of race relations in the South and how African Americans are cinematically depicted in history, from The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Gone with the Wind (1939) to The Help (2011) and 12 Years a Slave (2013). With an ability to reach mass audiences, films represent the power to influence and shape the public's understanding of our country's past, creating lasting images -- both real and imagined -- in American culture. In Southern History on Screen: Race and Rights, 1976--2016, editor Bryan Jack brings together essays from an international roster of scholars to provide new critical perspectives on Hollywood's relationships between historical films, Southern history, identity, and the portrayal of Jim Crow--era segregation. This collection analyzes films through the lens of religion, politics, race, sex, and class, building a comprehensive look at the South as seen on screen. By illuminating depictions of the southern belle in Gone with the Wind, the religious rhetoric of southern white Christians and the progressive identity of the "white heroes" in A Time to Kill (1996) and Mississippi Burning (1988), as well as many other archetypes found across films, this book explores the intersection between film, historical memory, and southern identity.
... At Saint Louis Univer-sity, Shirley Loui took a chance on me, and for that I am ... I... more ... At Saint Louis Univer-sity, Shirley Loui took a chance on me, and for that I am ... I've watched Amanda, Erin, Elyse, Alex, and Claire grow from babies to impressive young adults; I'm ... Clarence Winn, an Exoduster from Madison Parish, stated that at Ravia, a polling station in More ...
The Councilor: A Journal of the Social Studies, 2014
Hollywood films have been influential in the portrayal and representation of race relations in th... more Hollywood films have been influential in the portrayal and representation of race relations in the South and how African Americans are cinematically depicted in history, from The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Gone with the Wind (1939) to The Help (2011) and 12 Years a Slave (2013). With an ability to reach mass audiences, films represent the power to influence and shape the public's understanding of our country's past, creating lasting images -- both real and imagined -- in American culture.
In Southern History on Screen: Race and Rights, 1976--2016, editor Bryan Jack brings together essays from an international roster of scholars to provide new critical perspectives on Hollywood's relationships between historical films, Southern history, identity, and the portrayal of Jim Crow--era segregation. This collection analyzes films through the lens of religion, politics, race, sex, and class, building a comprehensive look at the South as seen on screen. By illuminating depictions of the southern belle in Gone with the Wind, the religious rhetoric of southern white Christians and the progressive identity of the "white heroes" in A Time to Kill (1996) and Mississippi Burning (1988), as well as many other archetypes found across films, this book explores the intersection between film, historical memory, and southern identity.
University of Missouri Press, 2007
In the aftermath of the Civil War, thousands of formerly enslaved people made their way from the ... more In the aftermath of the Civil War, thousands of formerly enslaved people made their way from the South to the Kansas plains. Called "Exodusters," they were searching for their own promised land. This book tells the story of this American exodus as it played out in St. Louis, a key stop in the journey west.
Cities in American Political History, 2011
This paper examines popular culture depictions of East St. Louis, Illinois, arguing that popular ... more This paper examines popular culture depictions of East St. Louis, Illinois, arguing that popular culture codes East St. Louis as a "black place" with "black problems."
Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies, 2019
The Historic Markers project was implemented in the mid 20th century in St. Louis, Missouri to ma... more The Historic Markers project was implemented in the mid 20th century in St. Louis, Missouri to mark sites of historic significance. This article studies the program to analyze how historical memory is created in a community, and how history is constructed by those in power, often to convey a positive view of the past
Civil war book review, 2015
For the past five years, American historians have been knee-deep in the American Civil War. The 1... more For the past five years, American historians have been knee-deep in the American Civil War. The 150th anniversary of this historical moment has brought on a deluge of writing on the subject; an exhilarating, exhausting experience. A mountain of work on the war now strains already groaning library shelves. The result, however, has yielded some surprises. Whereas an earlier generation of scholars interpreted the war as a necessary, noble effort to end slavery and bring the country in line with its highest ideals, historians are now more circumspect about the struggle.(1) Earlier debates about whether the Union government ended slavery, or whether black slaves did the heavy lifting themselves, has given way to a more nuanced understanding of causation.(2) Historians have augmented a focus on emancipation and the application of national power in the American South, with a more expansive historical horizon that now includes the history of Native Americans and the republic's western territories.(3) Even the war's end has received due attention and worthwhile complication.(4) All of this literature has pulled at the threads of a story we thought we knew. What's more, this work has opened up the tantalising possibility that as historians turn their attention to the period that followed the Civil War, the story of Reconstruction might be just as thoughtfully reexamined. We ought to be careful about what we wish for. If the history of the Civil War remains the beating heart of America's civic religion, the history of what followed that conflict, Reconstruction, has long been the republic's cautionary tale. No matter the generation, Reconstruction has been a darker moment in which Americans have found abundant tragedy. For scholars in the early 20th century-reared on stories of lost causes and craven attempts by northerners, who were hellbent on turning a racial order upside down-Reconstruction served as a story of overweening federal power.(5) For scholars who experienced the civil rights movement, Reconstruction was tragic, not because emancipated African Americans were elevated above their rightful station, but because of endemic white violence.(6) By the last decades of the 20th century, historians of Reconstruction adopted a broader view on the period, creating a rich literature that demonstrated the chaotic way in which African Americans battled against their former owners, various levels of government, internal contradictions and the inconsistencies of capitalism, all to secure a meaningful freedom.(7)
Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Dec 1, 2016
Journal of American History, 2008
Hollywood films have been influential in the portrayal and representation of race relations in th... more Hollywood films have been influential in the portrayal and representation of race relations in the South and how African Americans are cinematically depicted in history, from The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Gone with the Wind (1939) to The Help (2011) and 12 Years a Slave (2013). With an ability to reach mass audiences, films represent the power to influence and shape the public's understanding of our country's past, creating lasting images -- both real and imagined -- in American culture. In Southern History on Screen: Race and Rights, 1976--2016, editor Bryan Jack brings together essays from an international roster of scholars to provide new critical perspectives on Hollywood's relationships between historical films, Southern history, identity, and the portrayal of Jim Crow--era segregation. This collection analyzes films through the lens of religion, politics, race, sex, and class, building a comprehensive look at the South as seen on screen. By illuminating depictions of the southern belle in Gone with the Wind, the religious rhetoric of southern white Christians and the progressive identity of the "white heroes" in A Time to Kill (1996) and Mississippi Burning (1988), as well as many other archetypes found across films, this book explores the intersection between film, historical memory, and southern identity.
... At Saint Louis Univer-sity, Shirley Loui took a chance on me, and for that I am ... I... more ... At Saint Louis Univer-sity, Shirley Loui took a chance on me, and for that I am ... I've watched Amanda, Erin, Elyse, Alex, and Claire grow from babies to impressive young adults; I'm ... Clarence Winn, an Exoduster from Madison Parish, stated that at Ravia, a polling station in More ...
The Councilor: A Journal of the Social Studies, 2014
Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (1998-), 2014
The Journal of American Studies of Turkey
Using race as a lens, the article argues that the end of the Civil Rights Movement has created a ... more Using race as a lens, the article argues that the end of the Civil Rights Movement has created a new period of Southern identity creation, with films exonerating the contemporary South for racism and consigning most depictions of racism to the historical South.
The Councilor: A Journal of the Social Studies, Apr 2015
This article discusses the use of feature films in the collegiate history classroom.
The Griot: The Journal of African American Studies, Nov 2014
This work examines affidavits provided by twenty-two African American men who were part of the ... more This work examines affidavits provided
by twenty-two African American men who
were part of the Exoduster movement from
the South to Kansas in 1879. Primarily sharecroppers
from Louisiana and Mississippi,
these men were representative of a much
larger population. This essay uses their words
to explore economic, political, and personal
injustice as well as racial violence faced by
African Americans in the post-Reconstruction
South.
This paper explains the historical framework of the Ferguson protests in St. Louis, Missouri