Dr. Steve Carr

Professional Background

Professor Steve Carr received a Ph.D. in radio, television and film at the University of Texas at Austin, an M.A. in radio, television, and film at Northwestern University in Illinois, and an A.B. with honors in radio, television, and motion picture at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. During his fellowship at the Museum, he was Associate Professor of Communication at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. For his Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies Fellowship, Professor Carr conducted research for his project “Hollywood and the Holocaust from World War II to the End of the Studio System.”

Professor Carr refereed Hollywood and Anti-Semitism: A Cultural History up to World War Two (Cambridge University Press, 2001) which reviewers have praised for its in-depth research on antisemitic allegations of Jewish control made against Hollywood in the 1930s and 40s. He has been a lecturer at Sam Houston State University and an instructor at Austin Community College and the University of Texas at Austin. Professor Carr taught at the 2003 Summer Institute on the Holocaust and Jewish Civilization at Northwestern University. He is the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for his study of Hollywood and the Holocaust. In addition to developing his research interests in Holocaust history, Professor Carr has worked with the organization Facing History and Ourselves and has contributed to the development of a program to train secondary teachers in Holocaust education in Fort Wayne. He is also actively building a Holocaust Video Library at Indiana University.

Fellowship Research

During his tenure at the Museum, Professor Carr conducted research for his book project on the reactions of the American film industry to the Holocaust, focusing on the years 1941-1965. From a methodological standpoint, his project brought together the fields of Holocaust studies, film studies, Jewish studies, and American history. In addition to the Museum’s library collections of books and films, Professor Carr utilized the holdings of the Library of Congress where the personal papers of leading film-makers and movie producers are held. At the National Archives (College Park) he studied the U.S. government’s efforts to shape the representation of the Holocaust in Hollywood films during and after WWII.

Professor Carr was in residence at the Mandel Center from September 1, 2002 to June 1, 2003.