Christopher Yogerst

Education

PhD, Communication, Regent University

MA, Critical Studies in Film and Television, Regent University

BA, Film Studies and English, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Bio

Chris Yogerst, associate professor of communication (CGS), is a historian who focuses on the social and political history of film, media, and popular culture. He is the author of four books including The Warner Brothers (University Press of Kentucky, 2023), which received rave reviews and was named a best book of 2023 by Sight and Sound magazine. Chris has been interviewed for NPR, WPR, The Times of London, as well as for historical documentaries currently in production. His regular columns can be found in The Hollywood Reporter, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and book reviews in The Washington Post. Chris is also a former fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Institute for Research in the Humanities.

Publications

Books:

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Reel West series, University of New Mexico Press, in press).

The Warner Brothers (University Press of Kentucky, 2023).

Hollywood Hates Hitler! Jew-Baiting, Anti-Nazism, and the Senate Investigation into Warmongering in Motion Pictures (University Press of Mississippi, 2020).

From the Headlines to Hollywood: The Birth and Boom of Warner Bros. (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016).

Peer-Reviewed Journals:

“A Face in the Crowd (1957): Reception and Relevancy, From the Dawn of Television to the Digital Age,” Journal of Popular Film and Television, (Summer 2021).

“Searching for Common Ground: Hollywood Prior to the Senate Investigation on Motion Picture War Propaganda, 1938-1941,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, (April 2019).

“Rod Serling’s Vast Promised Land: Battling Sponsors, Debating the FCC, and Fighting for Mature Television 1959-1966,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, (September 2017).

“Hughes, Hawks, and Hays: The Monumental Censorship Battle Over Scarface (1932),” The Journal of American Culture (June 2017).

“Superhero Films: A Fascist National Complex or Exemplars of Moral Virtue?” Journal of Religion & Film (April 2017).

“Affirmation of Myth and Nostalgia in The Shootist (1976) and True Grit (2010),” The Quint: an Interdisciplinary Quarterly from the North (summer 2015).

“Faith Under the Fedora: Indiana Jones and the Heroic Journey Towards God,” Journal of Religion & Film (October 2014).

Book Chapters:

“Image Management and the Fall of Hollywood’s Golden Age,” Oxford Handbook on American Film History, edited by Jon Lewis, (Oxford University Press, in press).

“Aristotle and the Wild West: The Western as Rhetorical Device,” The Good, the Bad, and the Ancient: Essays on the Greco-Roman Influence in Westerns, Edited by Sue Matheson, (McFarland, 2022). Winner: Best Edited Collection, Popular Culture Association 2023.

“Trust in the Journey: HBO’s Watchmen and Superhero Mythology,” co-authored with Mark Peterson, After Midnight: Analyzing the Post-Watchmen Sequels, (University Press of Mississippi, 2022).

“Individuation and the Psychology of Rebirth,” co-authored with Caitlin Yogerst, Wonder Woman Psychology: Lassoing the Truth, Edited by Travis Langley and Mara Wood, (Sterling, 2017).

“Rules for Surviving a Horror-Comedy: Satiric Genre Transformation from Scream to Zombieland,” The Laughing Dead: The Horror-Comedy Film from Bride of Frankenstein to Zombieland, Edited by Cynthia Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper, (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016).

Encyclopedia Entries:

Entries for Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Hollywood and World War II, the Hollywood Sign, and Warner Bros. for Hooray For Hollywood: The Cultural Encyclopedia of America’s Dream Factory (Greenwood 2018).

Book/Film/Exhibition Reviews in Academic Journals:

“Wisconsin Funnies Shows Comic’s Deep Roots in the American Midwest: A Review,” International Journal of Comic Art, Fall/Winter 2020.

“Menus for Movieland: Newspapers and the Emergence of American Film Culture, 1913–1916 (Book Review), Film & History, summer 2019.

“Los Angeles Plays Itself  (Film Review),” Film & History, summer 2016.

“The Hollywood Sign: Fantasy and Reality of an American Icon (Book Review),” The Journal of Film and Video, spring/Summer 2013.

“The Philosophy of the Western (Book Review),” issue 59 of Senses of Cinema, June 2011.

Popular Press:

“The Rise of Mega Studios: How MGM Remade Hollywood 100 Years ago,” The Hollywood Reporter, April 29, 2024.

“Cass Warner, Filmmaker and Granddaughter of Warner Bros. Co-Founder, Dies at 76,” The Hollywood Reporter, March 18, 2024.

“Oscars Big Snub? Casablanca Win Marked Boiling Point at Warner Bros.,” The Hollywood Reporter, March 7, 2024.

“When Warner Bros. First Left the Family: Betrayal and High Drama in a Classic Hollywood Megadeal,” The Hollywood Reporter, December 22nd, 2023.

“Endless Culture Wars: On Kliph Nesteroff’s Outrageous,” Los Angeles Review of Books, December 1st, 2023.

“Hollywood Has Been Here Before with Antisemitism,” The Hollywood Reporter, November 27th, 2023.

“A Man Without a Country: On Scott Eyman’s Charlie Chaplin vs. America,” Los Angeles Review of Books, October 26th, 2023.

“The Long Shadow of Anti-Trust Targets from Hollywood’s Golden Age,” The Hollywood Reporter, September 4th, 2023.

“Mobsters, Union Leaders, and Studio Moguls: The Infamous 1945-46 Warner Brothers Strikes,” Los Angeles Review of Books, August 22nd, 2023.

“How the Warner Brothers Got Their Film Business Started,” The Hollywood Reporter, April 4th, 2023.

“What Studio Franchises Can Learn from the Rise, Fall and Rise of the Western,” The Hollywood Reporter, March 21st, 2023.

“A New History of the Oscars Reveals the Power Behind the Glamour,” Washington Post, February 20th, 2023.

“How Babylon Chases Hollywood’s Decadent Past,” The Hollywood Reporter, December 23rd, 2022.

“Hollywood on Hollywood,” Los Angeles Review of Books, December 5th, 2022.

“Orson Welles’ ’War of the Worlds’ Broadcast: Its Ominous Echoes For a Fractured Media,” The Hollywood Reporter, October 28th, 2022.

“When Hollywood Was Punished for its Anti-Nazism,” The Hollywood Reporter, September 22nd, 2022.

“100 Years Ago: How Hollywood’s Self-Censorship Battles Shaped the MPA,” The Hollywood Reporter, September 2nd, 2022.

Victim of His Own Celebrity: On Richard Schickel’s “The Famous Mr. Fairbanks,” Los Angeles Review of Books, August 7th, 2022.

“The Dark Side of the New Hollywood: On John Lewis’s Road Trip to Nowhere,” Los Angeles Review of Books, July 30h, 2022.

“Buster Keaton: A Timeless Comedian,” Los Angeles Review of Books, March 25th, 2022.

“The Oskar Schindler of Hollywood,” Los Angeles Review of Books, October 26th, 2021.

“Pseudo-Events in the 21st Century,” Los Angeles Review of Books, September 2nd, 2021.

“Billy Wilder’s Amerikanismus,” Los Angeles Review of Books, April 28th, 2021.

“A Man and His Persona: On Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise,” Los Angeles Review of Books, January 3rd, 2021.

“When Democratic Senators Collaborated with American Nazis to Stop Hollywood from Taking On Hitler,” The Daily Beast, September 27th, 2020.

“We Had Witnessed an Exhibition: On Thomas Doherty’s Little Lindy is Kidnapped,” Los Angeles Review of Books, September 24th, 2020.

“When the U.S. Government Went After Anti-Nazi Hollywood,” Los Angeles Review of Books, July 27th. 2020.

“Forgotten Movie Royalty.” Los Angeles Review of Books, June 12th, 2020.

“A Respite for Refugees: The Sun and Her Stars.” Los Angeles Review of Books, March 31st, 2020.

“Sin, Glamour, and Photography in Hollywood’s Golden Age: On Two Books by Mark A. Vieira,” Los Angeles Review of Books, March 14th, 2020.

“Into the Archives: on Letters from Hollywood,” Los Angeles Review of Books, January 2nd, 2020.

“Why We Shouldn’t Fear Joker,” Los Angeles Review of Books, October 10th, 2019.

“The Hunt May Be a Victim of America’s Misdirected Outrage,” The Hollywood Reporter, August 21st, 2019.

“Mel Brooks: Boomer’s Comedian,” Los Angeles Review of Books, June 11th, 2019.

“A Manifesto for Connecting Personally in a Tech-Dominated World,” The Washington Post, March 29th, 2019.

“Everyone Can Benefit from Dreyer’s English – Especially Scholars,” Los Angeles Review of Books, February 12th, 2019.

“The Incredible Life of ‘Handsome Johnny,’ a Gangster Worthy of the Movies,” The Washington Post, November 22nd, 2018 (online) November 20th, 2018 (print).

“The Women Who Knew Howard Hughes,” Los Angeles Review of Books, November 21st, 2018.

“The Most Powerful Person in Hollywood Without a Studio,” Los Angeles Review of Books, November 11th, 2018.

“Wave of Anti-Semitism Today Resembles Pre-War Attitudes Towards Jewish-Led Hollywood,” Los Angeles Review of Books, November 4th, 2018.

“A Forgotten Filmmaker Who Influenced Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder Gets His Due,” The Washington Post, July 5th, 2018 (online) July 15th, 2018 (print).

“How Stan Lee Became the Man Behind Marvel,” Los Angeles Review of Books, April 21st, 2018.

“When Hollywood Caved to the House-Un American Activities Committee,” The Washington Post, April 13th, 2018 (online), April 22nd, 2018 (print).

“The Man Who Saved Movies from Thomas Edison’s Monopoly,” The Washington Post, December 5th, 2017 (online), January 28th, 2018 (print).

“Hollywood, Los Angeles Spies, and the Underground Battle Against Hitler,” Los Angeles Review of Books, October 23rd, 2017.

“The Real and Imagined in Douglas Rushkoff’s Aleister & Adolf,” Los Angeles Review of Books, October 21st, 2017.

“In An Always-On World, Maybe We Don’t Need to Watch It All – Right Now,” The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 23rd, 2015.