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Title: Judging WWII Hollywood and the Jews: Cinema Studies and Recent Debates Over History and Accountability

11 AM - Intros of participants

Laura Rosenzweig will be speaking on "Jewish Hollywood, Antisemitism and the Politics of Resistance in the United States in the 1930s."  She received her Ph.D. in U.S. History from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 2013, and teaches at San Francisco State U.

Steve Ross will be speaking on "Hollywood Confronts Nazism and Fascism."  He is Professor of History at the University of Southern California and Co-Director of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities.  His many books include Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics (2011), which received a Film Scholars Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Jon Wilkman will be speaking on "The War Behind the Screen."  He is Producer/Director/Writer for Wilkman Productions, Inc., and was producer and writer for the seven-part 2010 TCM mini-series Moguls and Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood.

Opening position PREVIEWS (in alphabetical order):

11:05 - Laura Rosenzweig

11:10 - Steve Ross

11:15 - Jon Wilkman

Roundtable DISCUSSION

11:20 - How did the topic of accountability for Hollywood Jews originate, and what are the social and cultural roots to the current popular preoccupation with what Hollywood did or did not do to combat Nazism during the 1930s and 40s?

11:35 - What aspects of this controversial topic have gotten overlooked?

11:50 - As a result of the current controversy, what new knowledge regarding the subject has emerged or is about to emerge?

12:05 - What social and cultural factors might explain public fascination with the topic now?  Is the preoccupation with history, accountability, and Hollywood unique?  How does this preoccupation parallel similar debates sparked by books as far back as Edwin Black's _IBM and the Holocaust_ (2001) and as recently as Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman's _FDR and the Jews_ (2013)?

12:20 - Discussion and concluding remarks

Title: Judging WWII Hollywood and the Jews: Cinema Studies and Recent Debates Over History and Accountability

Summary: With the publication of two important books, 2013 marked a watershed in debates over what Hollywood did or did not do, as well as what Hollywood should have done, to combat Nazism and raise public awareness of Nazi anti-Semitism and wartime atrocities that eventually culminated with the Holocaust.  In _Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939_, Thomas Doherty argued that Hollywood waged a surrogate battle, aligned with U.S. interests abroad, that despite both domestic and foreign constraints fought the looming threat of fascism as best it could.  Shortly thereafter, Harvard began promoting _The Collaboration: Hollywood's Pact with Hitler_ by Ben Urwand.  Taking a very publicized stance against Doherty, Urwand argued that behind the scenes, Hollywood bent over backwards to accommodate Nazism, especially before the U.S. entered World War II.  The "collaboration," as Urwand claimed, resulted in Hollywood soft-pedaling or even scrapping projects depicting Nazi persecution of Jews.

As a consequence of this very public debate, cinema studies and film history suddenly appeared thrust into the popular spotlight, with exchanges spilling over into such popular press titles as _The New York Times_, _The Chronicle for Higher Education_, and _Vanity Fair_.  Even Quentin Tarantino, director of _Inglorious Basterds_, has chimed in.  Rather than perpetuate the somewhat sensational if fruitless claims over history and corporate accountability, the proposed workshop steps back to consider both the parameters and polarities constituting this thorny subject from a scholarly perspective.  In anticipation of the workshop, the invited participants will consider four key questions:

- How did the topic originate, and what are the social and cultural roots to the current popular preoccupation with what Hollywood did or did not do to combat Nazism during the 1930s and 40s?

- What aspects of this controversial topic have gotten overlooked?

- As a result of the current controversy, what new knowledge regarding the subject has emerged or is about to emerge?

- What social and cultural factors might explain public fascination with the topic now?  Is the preoccupation with history, accountability, and Hollywood unique?  How does this preoccupation parallel similar debates sparked by books as far back as Edwin Black's _IBM and the Holocaust_ (2001) and as recently as Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman's _FDR and the Jews_ (2013)?

To address these questions, Jon Wilkman will discuss his current documentary project, _The War Behind the Screen: Hollywood and Hitler_.  Both Laura Rosenzweig and Steve Ross will discuss their groundbreaking research into the role the Los Angeles Jewish community played in combating domestic anti-Semitism and Nazi front groups in the U.S., particularly with regard to an elaborate espionage network that infiltrated these groups.  Rosenzweig's work has revealed important new insights into the organizational behaviors of various constituencies within the Los Angeles Jewish community.  Ross, an established scholar of film and labor history, will address the political dimensions of this history and its implications for the current political climate.  Steven Carr will discuss the importance of viewing the subject within the framework of globalization and the paradoxes and complexities of a burgeoning transnational popular culture.

Bibliographic Sources

Thomas Doherty, _Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939_ (Columbia U P, 2013).

Ben Urwand, _The Collaboration: Hollywood's Pact with Hitler_ (Harvard U P, 2013)

Jon Wilkman, _Moguls and Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood_ (TCM, 2010)

Laura Rosenzweig.  "Hollywood's Spies:  Jewish Infiltration of Nazi and Pro-Nazi Groups in Los Angeles, 1933-1941"  (Dissertation, University of California, 2013)

Shana Bernstein Bridges of Reform: Interracial Civil Rights Activism in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles (Oxford UP), 2011

Chair: Steven Alan Carr - Indiana U - Purdue U Fort Wayne

Chair Bio: Steven Alan Carr is Associate Professor of Communication at Indiana U - Purdue U Fort Wayne (IPFW).  He is a 2002-03 Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, a 2010-11 Loewenstein-Wiener Marcus Research Fellow at the American Jewish Archives, and Co-Director of the IPFW Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Reviews of his first book, Hollywood and Anti-Semitism: A Cultural History up to World War II (Cambridge U P, 2001), have appeared in Commentary, The Forward, The London Review of Books, The New Republic, and The Washington Post. His present project, which received an award from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2002, explores the response of the American film industry to the growing public awareness of the Holocaust.

Participants

Presenter: Jon Wilkman

Topic: The War Behind the Screen

Bio: Jon Wilkman is Producer/Director/Writer for Wilkman Productions, Inc.  Before completing _Moguls and Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood_ for TCM in 2010, his documentary career began at CBS with the historical series "The Twentieth Century," hosted by Walter Cronkite.  While working as a documentarian for eight years in the late 60s and early 70s, he also taught film history at Fordham University.  More recently, he has lectured on non-fiction writing at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, and on Los Angeles history for UCLA Extension.  With his wife Nancy, he is the author of the illustrated narrative history _Picturing Los Angeles_.

Presenter: Laura Rosenzweig

Topic: Jewish Hollywood, Antisemitism and the Politics of Resistance in the United States in the 1930s 

Bio:  Laura Rosenzweig  received her Ph.D. in U.S. History from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 2013.  Her dissertation, entitled "Hollywood's Spies:  Jewish Infiltration of Nazi and Pro-Nazi Groups in Los Angeles, 1933-1941" details the eight-year, covert fact-finding operation against Nazis and pro-Nazi groups in Los Angeles conducted by a select group of Jewish leaders and funded by the Hollywood studios.    Laura received a three year dissertation grant from Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture,  and research grants from the  American Jewish Archives, the Historical Society of Southern California, USC, and the University of California to conduct this research.  Since 2005, Laura has been an adjunct lecturer in Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University. 

Presenter: Steve Ross

Topic:  Hollywood Confronts Nazism and Fascism 

Bio:   Steven J. Ross is Professor of History at the University of Southern California and Co-Director of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities.  His most recent book, Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics (2011), received a Film Scholars Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.  His other books include Movies and American Society (2002); Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America (1998).  His latest book, Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jew and Their Spies Foiled Nazi and Fascist Plots Against America will be published by Bloomsbury Press. 

Workshop Guidelines

ELIGIBILITY

If the proposal is accepted, individuals must:

1. become an SCMS member and pay the membership fee by January 17 (5 pm CT)
2. register to attend the conference by January 17 (5 pm CT)
3. pay the conference fee by January 17 (5 pm CT).

WORKSHOPS

Workshops are designed to stimulate conversation and interaction among the presenters and the audience. Workshop participants sometimes give a brief presentation (seven minutes or less) that is less formal than a research paper. In some instances, workshop participants simply answer questions from the audience. Workshops often entail discussions of more practical aspects of the field: teaching, research methods, and professional development.

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To propose a workshop you will need: 1) a title, 2) a summary no longer than 2500 characters, 3) 3-5 bibliographic sources, 4) a chair bio no longer than 500 characters and the names, affiliations, and bios for no more than five participants including the chair. You may use either the workshop title or a new topic title for each participant. Note: titles should clearly signal the main topic of the proposal. Do not put workshop titles in quotes. To view a sample workshop proposal, click here.

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Please note: All workshop participants who are not currently SCMS members must be registered as temporary members no later than August 30 (4 pm CT). (All temporary memberships must be approved before a proposal can be submitted.)

FEE WAIVERS

Waiver of the membership and/or the conference registration fees may be granted in exceptional circumstances for artists, filmmakers, or renowned scholars from other disciplines whose contributions would enrich pre-constituted panels or workshops. To request a conference registration fee waiver and/or membership fee waiver for workshop participants, a fee waiver request form must be submitted online to the SCMS Office by August 30 (5 pm CT). Graduate students and open call participants do not qualify for these waivers).

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• deliver a paper and chair a panel
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SPONSORSHIP

Caucuses, Scholarly Interest Groups (SIGs), and the Graduate Student Organization (GSO) may sponsor no more than eight accepted panels and workshops. Groups may view accepted panels and workshops in the preliminary program posted online in December. Chairs of pre-constituted panels and workshops must request sponsorship in writing from Caucuses, Scholarly Interest Groups, and the GSO. Panels and workshops may be sponsored by more than one group. The SIGs, Caucuses, and the GSO are responsible for notifying the SCMS Office of panels and workshops they have agreed to sponsor before January 17 (5 pm CT).

KEY DATES

August 30: Final day for temporary members to register on the SCMS website (4 pm CT) (All temporary memberships must be approved before a proposal can be submitted.) 
August 30: Final day to submit a proposal (5 pm CT)
August 30: Final day to submit a request for a fee waiver (5 pm CT)
January 17: Final day to become an SCMS member if proposal is selected (5 pm CT)
January 17: Final day to register for the conference if proposal is selected (5 pm CT)