September 8, 2000

Celluloid Scholar: a New Look at African-Americans and Film

By ALISON SCHNEIDER

Silent movies get Jacqueline Najuma Stewart talking. But not about mammies, Uncle Toms, rapists, or coons. Call other film-studies scholars if you want an earful about the demeaning images of black people in early cinema. Ms. Stewart wants to talk about something different: how African-Americans identified with silent films and influenced their content.

These days, Ms. Stewart's work has a lot of institutions talking about