Film Studies, Professor Bernard Cook

In this semester-long assignment, students engaged in project-based, collaborative creative work. They focused on the histories and legacies of Slavery, the Jesuits, Georgetown University, and the Descendant community. Students met and filmed with GU272+ descendants on campus, in D.C., and in Louisiana. The documentary form enables an interrogation of memory through the editing process while the recollections of living descendants are sequenced into larger structures of meaning which raise questions through connection and juxtaposition. The goal of the short documentary film is to engage viewers in an intersubjective process of creating meaning. You can find other examples of these student documentaries in the History and Memory sections of this course.

*Descriptions and videos produced by students in Professor Cook's class*
Facing Georgetown's History (2019)
Facing Georgetown's History was produced by Gary Thompson, Kathryn Lenihan, Elizabeth Cregan, and Zhe Zhang. The filmmakers draw upon their field research and filming in Louisiana, with special attention to Maringouin, LA, to the Whitney Plantation, and to Plessy Park in New Orleans. They argue that historical research and careful attention to descendants' stories are required for Georgetown to face its institutional history with Slavery.
The Good Work (2019)
Students explore the parallels between a Jesuit’s unanswered plea and a University’s reconnection with the descendants of slaves it owned, sold, and spurned. With the call for accountability in Father Van de Velde, S.J.’s 1848 letters echoing today, the interrogation of a past of indifference and silence may inspire a future of reconciliation and reunion.

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