Robert A Rosenstone
Biographic Data
| ID | 327434 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert A Rosenstone |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert A |
| FAMILY NAME | Rosenstone |
| SIGNATURE | ROSENSTONE R A |
| AFFILIATIONS | California Institute of Technology |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 58 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 81 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 55 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1967 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Mainstream drama
The existence of ‘Medieval History in the Movies’ and its two companion sites, ‘Ancient History in the Movies’ and ‘Modern History in the Movies’, underscores something about what has been happening in the historical profession for the last 40 or so years – some historians have become interested in the visual media as both a competitor and a collaborator in their attempt to convey the past not only to students but to the culture at large. The bes…
Innovative drama
Hollywood films have dominated the world market since the 1920s, but the United States has had no monopoly on the historical. The directors of these innovative works are often leftists or revolutionary sympathizers, people who find not just the stories but the form of the mainstream film to be suffused with individualist, capitalist values which, as people working for change, they wish to combat. The first and arguably the greatest director of in…
Film on history
Over the centuries, these visual representations of Buddhist ideas began to take on an integrity of their own, as more and more people came and still come to know the ideas of the religion through these images rather than through the sacred texts that were their inspiration. The question of whether this is a lesser or simply a different realm of history. The question of how and what and if the historical film adds to historical understanding. The…
To see the past
Early on in the history of the new medium, a few people saw part of its promise as just this ability to make us see the past. A French drama critic in 1908 described the aspirations of film as not only the ability to reproduce the contemporary world, but also ‘to animate the past, to reconstruct the great events of history through the performance of the actor and the evocation of atmosphere and milieu.’ More than 125 years after the birth of cine…
The view from 20171
A more recent controversy in the United States took place over Selma , nominated for an Academy Award as Best Picture of the year in 2014. The president disapproves of the proposed march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery as dangerous and premature. The attack against Selma was led by Joseph Califano, a long-time aide to Johnson. The real problem with Califano&s;s critique is that, like all such efforts, it seems based on the notion th…
History on film
Words aren&s;t fully up to the task of comprehending the film experience. History is not just words on the page, but on pages which are for the most part contained in thick tomes whose weight and bulk help to underscore the solidity of the lessons they teach. Motion pictures are all about making a reputation for the director and the stars and money for the production companies. The desire to express our relationship to the past by using contempor…
Telling lives
The life story, as delivered in words, has a long history and a longer tradition. Today, decades after literary theorists have turned their critical eyes upon the genre, little about biography has been settled. Roland Barthes put it simply, calling biography ‘the fiction that dare not speak its name’. Narrative becomes the life and the basis for the judgements that will be rendered about the subject. Ultimately the relationship between fact and f…
Film-maker/historian
The sequence is based upon a real event. The film lets us know that this is Syracuse University shortly after the Cambodia ‘incursion’ and the killings at Kent State, that moment in early May 1970 when hundreds, thousands, of college and high school campuses went on strike. A creation of director Oliver Stone, this sequence is not exactly a complete fabrication but, rather, a cunning mixture of diverse visual elements – fact, near fact, displaced…
Engaging the discourse
Suspicions about the possibility of representing the Holocaust fall with force on the motion picture, particularly the drama, and more particularly the popular Hollywood drama. Some scholars and critics find that dramatized images of Auschwitz are so banal, overused, and normalizing of an experience that could never be called normal, that only by avoiding images of the camps can one depict the Holocaust. The problem of representing the Holocaust …
Beyond the West
This chapter provides a brief introduction to movies made outside Western Europe and North America. A few such movies do make it to big city screens in the US for limited runs, and others are occasionally exhibited at local and regional festivals devoted to national or regional groups from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Far East. Latin America has been a rich field in terms of historical films, with three countries …
Documentary
The documentary is a problematic form to all those who in recent years have tried to define and theorize it, and the history documentary is, if anything, even more problematic. The parallel or closeness between traditional history and the documentary undoubtedly accounts for the fact that historians, journalists, and the general public are rather more trusting of the documentary than the dramatic feature. The invention of lightweight cameras and …
History on Film/Film on History
History on Film/Film on History has established itself as a classic treatise on the historical film and its role in bringing the past to life. In the fourth edition of this widely acclaimed text, Robert A. Rosenstone argues that to leave history films out of the discussion of the meaning of the past is to ignore a major means of understanding historical events. This book examines what history films convey about the past and how they convey it, de…
What’s a nice narrative historian like me doing at a conference like this
This is the text of a talk I was scheduled to deliver at a Wesleyan University conference in April 2020 (canceled due to Covid-19) devoted to the memory and work of Hayden White. Based on issues surrounding the relationship of an innovative historical narrative to the work of theorists, and White, in particular, it argues that innovation arises from a nontheoretical mindset, but needs interaction with theorists as a commentary on the new forms of…
Revisioning History
Adventures of a postmodern historian – Japan
In which the author, a historian of the modern West, goes to Japan to teach on a Fulbright and finds that his year abroad leads him to a historical topic so different from his past efforts and so close to his own experience that it takes him more than a decade to figure out an innovative way of writing the past that can express his, and he hopes that of others as well, contemporary literary sensibility
History on Film/Film on History
History on Film/Film on History demonstrates how films can be analyzed as historical sources. It offers undergraduates an introduction to some of the first issues involved with studying historical films. Rosenstone argues that to leave history films out of the discussion of the meaning of the past is to ignore a major factor in our understanding of past events. He examines what history films convey about the past and how they convey it, demonstra…
The War That Won’t Die
The War That Won't Die is in some ways a frustrating book, at once full of smart \ninsights and yet in some senses naïve, deeply researched and yet full of lacunae. \nThe aim of its author, David Archibald, is to explore 'the diverse ways in which \ncinema can represent one event, the elasticity of the event, and the efficacy of \nthe representational techniques of varying film forms.' Focusing on the Spanish \nCivil War, 1936-1939, he proposes t…
A Companion to the Historical Film
"Broad in scope, this interdisciplinary collection of original scholarship on historical film features essays that explore the many facets of this expanding field and provide a platform for promising avenues of research. Offers a unique collection of cutting edge research that questions the intention behind and influence of historical film. Essays range in scope from inclusive broad-ranging subjects such as political contexts, to focused assessme…
Buried in a footnote
In which the author agrees with the Young Colleague's argument about the need for new ways to write history, but finds it pretty much old news both in content and form, and in which he objects to being honored, along with other innovators, only in footnotes rather than in the text
What's a nice historian like you doing in a place like this
In which the author argues that personal experience of creating a course in history on film and working on the dramatic feature, Reds, were crucial encounters which helped to move him from being a traditional historian to one who has come to argue that the history film may be seen as a new kind of discourse on the past. The support of various journals and other academics helped to provide a context for and to reinforce his strange two-decade path…
A historian in spite of myself
In which the author thanks those five scholars who took the time to comment upon his work and the state of the (sub) field of film and history, and in which he confesses to the awful truth that despite his sometime status as the proponent for and author of experimental works on history, and his distinctly suspect (by traditional historians) advocacy of what he calls the history film as a legitimate and important way of telling the past, he noneth…
Experiments in Rethinking History
From two of the world's leading postmodern historians, this thoroughly original collection of articles allows students and researchers to understand and learn important new ways of thinking and writing about the past. This book includes a thorough two-part introduction on theory and practice as well as introductory material in each section that allows the reader to fully engage with the theoretical aspects of the book. It provides a deeper unders…
Confessions of a postmodern (?) historian
Perhaps because I never wanted to be a historian but a novelist, or perhaps because I never had a single heritage to embrace, I became as a scholar more open to the deconstructive and decentering spirit of postmodernism. Or perhaps it was the events of my life and career which led me in that direction. Whatever the cause, these Confessions chronicle three-plus decades of a scholarly career which begins by chronicling the activities of the Left in…
The Reel Joan of Arc
Although historians in recent years have become interested in evaluating the contributions of historical film to our understanding of the past, they have so far evolved no criteria for doing so. This essay moves toward doing just that by suggesting and examining some of the ways in which the dramatic historical film creates the world of the past on the screen. Operating metaphorically and poetically, the film set in the past becomes a work of his…
Historical Film/Historical Thought
(2003). Historical Film/Historical Thought. South African Historical Journal: Vol. 48, No. 1, pp. 10-22
Visions of the Past. The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History
Revisioning History. Film and the Construction of a New Past
The Times They Are A-Changin
Once a medium of vapid love lyrics, popular music in the 1960's has taken on a new seriousness. In the words of popular songs, young musicians have begun to express their alienation from and disdain for American institutions and mores. Part of this has taken the form of traditional attacks on war and intolerance. More significant, however, have been criticisms of the quality of life in an affluent society. In their music, youth have worried about…
Confessions of a postmodern (?) historian
Perhaps because I never wanted to be a historian but a novelist, or perhaps because I never had a single heritage to embrace, I became as a scholar more open to the deconstructive and decentering spirit of postmodernism. Or perhaps it was the events of my life and career which led me in that direction. Whatever the cause, these Confessions chronicle three-plus decades of a scholarly career which begins by chronicling the activities of the Left in…
Romantic Revolutionary
Journal Article Romantic Revolutionary: A Biography of John Reed. By Robert A. Rosenstone. (New York: Knopf, 1975. xxvii + 430 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. $15.00.) Get access John P. Diggins John P. Diggins University of California, Irvine Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 63, Issue 1, June 1976, Pages 172–173, https://doi.org/10.2307/1909061 Publish…
Does a Filmic Writing of History Exist
Book reviewed in this article: Natalie Zemon Davis, Slaves on Screen: Film and Historical Vision
October as History
How does Sergei Eisenstein's famed film, October, relate to the events of October that it recounts? Is the film Bolshevik propaganda or history? These are the questions addressed by this essay.The strategy is to place Eisenstein and his work alongside five well-regarded histories of the Bolshevik Revolution written between 1919 and 1998. Seen in this context, the film proves to be - aside from a couple of wholly invented sequences - a work of his…
Buried in a footnote
In which the author agrees with the Young Colleague's argument about the need for new ways to write history, but finds it pretty much old news both in content and form, and in which he objects to being honored, along with other innovators, only in footnotes rather than in the text
What's a nice historian like you doing in a place like this
In which the author argues that personal experience of creating a course in history on film and working on the dramatic feature, Reds, were crucial encounters which helped to move him from being a traditional historian to one who has come to argue that the history film may be seen as a new kind of discourse on the past. The support of various journals and other academics helped to provide a context for and to reinforce his strange two-decade path…
A historian in spite of myself
In which the author thanks those five scholars who took the time to comment upon his work and the state of the (sub) field of film and history, and in which he confesses to the awful truth that despite his sometime status as the proponent for and author of experimental works on history, and his distinctly suspect (by traditional historians) advocacy of what he calls the history film as a legitimate and important way of telling the past, he noneth…
The Reel Joan of Arc
Although historians in recent years have become interested in evaluating the contributions of historical film to our understanding of the past, they have so far evolved no criteria for doing so. This essay moves toward doing just that by suggesting and examining some of the ways in which the dramatic historical film creates the world of the past on the screen. Operating metaphorically and poetically, the film set in the past becomes a work of his…
A History of What Has Not Yet Happened
The practice of history is under siege today from two armies: one made up of theorists, whose writings have called into question the truth claims of traditional historical discourse; another made up of filmmakers, who have stolen the audience for historical stories. Yet it is precisely the attacks from the former army that open the way for us to accept the latter as a new kind of historian - that is, of people who attempt to make meaning out of t…
Kipling's Japan
Reds as History
I must begin this essay on a personal note. At the conclusion of Reds my name appears in the credits as historical consultant. Since on this side of the Atlantic it may seem unusual to criticize a work in which one has taken part (in France nobody blinked an eye when the playful Roland Barthes reviewed his own book), I wish to be quite specific about my minor role in the production of the film. Beginning in 1972 (three years before my book, Roman…
The Men of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion
Journal Article The Men of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion Get access Robert A. Rosenstone Robert A. Rosenstone assistant professor of history California Institute of Technology Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 54, Issue 2, September 1967, Pages 327–338, https://doi.org/10.2307/1894809 Published: 01 September 1967
In Search of Light
Journal Article In Search of Light: The Broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow, 1938–1961. Ed. by Edward Bliss, Jr. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967. xv + 364 pp. Illustrations and index. $6.95.) Get access Robert A. Rosenstone Robert A. Rosenstone California Institute of Technology Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 54, Issue 4, March 1968, Pages 926–927, https://doi.org/10.2307/1…
American Commissars in Spain
Research Article| October 01 1968 American Commissars in Spain Robert A. Rosenstone Robert A. Rosenstone Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google South Atlantic Quarterly (1968) 67 (4): 688–702. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-67-4-688 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Robert A. Rosenstone; American Commissars in Spain. South Atlantic Quarterly 1 October 1968; 67 (…
The Times They Are A-Changin
Once a medium of vapid love lyrics, popular music in the 1960's has taken on a new seriousness. In the words of popular songs, young musicians have begun to express their alienation from and disdain for American institutions and mores. Part of this has taken the form of traditional attacks on war and intolerance. More significant, however, have been criticisms of the quality of life in an affluent society. In their music, youth have worried about…
Crusade of the Left
American Rebels and the Quest for Self
Romantic Revolutionary
Journal Article Romantic Revolutionary: A Biography of John Reed. By Robert A. Rosenstone. (New York: Knopf, 1975. xxvii + 430 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. $15.00.) Get access John P. Diggins John P. Diggins University of California, Irvine Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 63, Issue 1, June 1976, Pages 172–173, https://doi.org/10.2307/1909061 Publish…
The Federal (Mostly Non-) Writers' Project
Summing Up the Division of the Left
Learning from Those “Imitative” Japanese
Learning from Those “Imitative” Japanese: Another Side of the American Experience in the Mikado's Empire Get access Robert A. Rosenstone Robert A. Rosenstone Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 85, Issue 3, June 1980, Pages 572–595, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/85.3.572 Published: 01 June 1980
Learning from Those "Imitative" Japanese
The Modern School Movement
Journal Article The Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States. By Paul Avrich. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980. xiii + 447 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. Cloth, $30.00; paper, $12.50.) Get access Robert A. Rosenstone Robert A. Rosenstone California Institute of Technology Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 67, Issu…
Reds as History
I must begin this essay on a personal note. At the conclusion of Reds my name appears in the credits as historical consultant. Since on this side of the Atlantic it may seem unusual to criticize a work in which one has taken part (in France nobody blinked an eye when the playful Roland Barthes reviewed his own book), I wish to be quite specific about my minor role in the production of the film. Beginning in 1972 (three years before my book, Roman…
Distant Obligations
Journal Article Distant Obligations: Modern American Writers and Foreign Causes. By David C. Duke. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. ix + 326 pp. Notes and index. $27.50.) Get access Robert A. Rosenstone Robert A. Rosenstone California Institute of Technology Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 70, Issue 3, December 1983, Pages 697–698, https://doi.org/10.2307/190355…
Genres, History, and Hollywood. A Review Article
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Racist War for Civilization
Mirror in the Shrine
Based on the travels of Griffis, Morse, and Hearn in the late 1800s, these stories evoke the immediacy of daily experience in Meiji, Japan, a nation still feudal in many of its habits yet captivating to Westerners for its gentleness, beauty, and pure charm. Illustrated
Americans Abroad
Kipling's Japan
Mirror in the Shrine
What You Think About When You Think About Writing a Book on History and Film
Other| January 01 1990 What You Think About When You Think About Writing a Book on History and Film Robert A. Rosenstone Robert A. Rosenstone Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Public Culture (1990) 3 (1): 49–66. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-3-1-49 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Robert A. Rosenstone; What You Think About When You Think About Writing a Book on History and Film. …
Revisioning History
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Mirror in the Shrine
Journal Article Mirror in the Shrine: American Encounters with Meij Japan. By Robert A. Rosenstone. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988. xvi + 315 pp. $25.00.) Get access Wayne Patterson Wayne Patterson St. Norbert College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 77, Issue 4, March 1991, Page 1373, https://doi.org/10.2307/2078330 Published: 01 March 1991
"Like Writing History with Lighting" film historique/Verite historique
Revisioning History. Film and the Construction of a New Past
History (44 works) · History (32 works) · Art (25 works) · Computer Science (17 works) · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society (14 works) · Philosophy, History, and Historiography (13 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Art history (12 works) · Literature (12 works) · Philosophy (12 works)