‘American Denial’

January 27, 2015

Johnson State College, in collaboration with Vermont Public Television, will host a screening and discussion of the documentary American Denial at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 10, in 207 Bentley Hall. The event, which falls during JSC’s observance of Black History Month, is free and open to the public.

The film follows the story of foreign researcher and Nobel Laureate Gunnar Myrdal, whose study, An American Dilemma (1944), provided a provocative inquiry into the dissonance between stated beliefs as a society and what is perpetuated and allowed in the name of those beliefs. His inquiry into the United States’ racial psyche becomes a lens for modern inquiry into how denial, cognitive dissonance, and unrecognized, unconscious attitudes continue to dominate racial dynamics in American life. Archival footage, newsreels, nightly news reports, and rare Southern home movies from the ’30s and ’40s thread through the story, as well as psychological testing into racial attitudes from research footage, websites, and YouTube films.

The screening is part of PBS’ monthly Community Cinema series, in which free monthly screenings and community discussions of films from PBS’ Emmy Award-winning series “Independent Lens” are held throughout Vermont and the nation.

For more information on the Johnson State screening, contact Barbara Flathers, barbara.flathers@jsc.edu or 802-635-1200.