In Returning the Gaze Anna Everett revises American film history by recuperating the extensive and all-but-forgotten participation of black film critics during the early twentieth century. While much of the existing scholarship on blacks and the cinema focuses on image studies and stereotypical representations, this work excavates a wealth of early critical writing on the cinema by black cultural critics, academics, journalists, poets, writers, and film fans.
Culling black newspapers, magazines, scholarly and political journals, and monographs, Everett has produced an unparalleled investigation of black critical writing on the early cinema during the era of racial segregation in America. Correcting the notion that black critical interest in the cinema began and ended with the well-documented press campaign against D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, she discovers that as early as 1909 black newspapers produced celebratory discourses about the cinema as a much-needed corrective to the predominance of theatrical blackface minstrelsy. She shows how, even before the Birth of a Nation controversy, the black press succeeded in drawing attention to both the callous commercial exploitation of lynching footage and the varied work of black film entrepreneurs. The book also reveals a feast of film commentaries that were produced during the “roaring twenties” and the jazz age by such writers as W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston, as well as additional pieces that were written throughout the Depression and the pre– and post–war periods. Situating this wide-ranging and ideologically complex material in its myriad social, political, economic, and cultural contexts, Everett aims to resuscitate a historical tradition for contemporary black film literature and criticism.
Returning the Gaze will appeal to scholars and students of film, black and ethnic studies, American studies, cultural studies, literature, and journalism.

In no other professional field do senior leaders habitually return to the rank-and-file workforce in the twilight of their careers. Corporate CEOs rarely conclude their working lives by resuming the duties of a mid-level account executive; on the verge of retirement, four-star generals do not return to the infantry. But in academia former senior leaders often conclude their careers by reprising the roles and responsibilities of a professor. Until now, leaders and institutions have been left to navigate these transitions on their own—often learning hard lessons that might have been avoided. Stepping Away moves beyond the well-worn clichés of “stepping down” to examine how senior leadership role changes impact individuals and the institutions they serve. Drawn from empirical research involving more than fifty college presidents, provosts, and deans, this book delivers fresh understanding of the challenges and opportunities leaders face as they assume a new place in the social architecture of their campus. Bridging the gap between theory and practice, Stepping Away translates research into practical strategies that leaders can use to make this change successfully, providing guidance about when to speak up and when to remain quiet, how to develop new relationships, where to office, whether to apply for new jobs, and how to use their knowledge and skills to add value to their campus communities, on-campus and off.