Prof Tom Rice
Professor
- Phone
- +44 (0)1334 46 7472
- twtr@st-andrews.ac.uk
- Location
- 101a North Street
- Office hours
- Tuesday 11am-1pm
Biography
Professor Tom Rice is a film and cultural historian, with particular expertise in colonial cinemas and non-theatrical film. His first book, White Robes, Silver Screens: Movies and the Making of the Ku Klux Klan (Indiana University Press, 2015), which was runner-up for the BAFTSS Best Book award in 2017, examines the role of cinema in the formation, development and demise of the Ku Klux Klan between 1915 and 1944. He has spoken on aspects of this work for TV and radio, for print media (including the New York Times) and written articles based on this research for publications including The Guardian and The Conversation.
Rice’s second book, Films for the Colonies: Cinema and the Preservation of the British Empire (University of California Press, 2019), explores the establishment and growth of the Colonial Film Units (particularly in Africa and the Caribbean) from the 1920s to the 1960s, charting the British Government’s widespread production and mobile exhibition of educational film across the British Empire. In 2016/17 he received a Leverhulme Fellowship to undertake research for this book in Ghana and Jamaica. Rice previously served as the senior postdoctoral researcher on a major 3-year AHRC funded project, writing historical essays on more than 200 films and production companies (www.colonialfilm.org.uk). In close collaboration with archives, he has also helped to organise film seasons, conferences and educational programmes.
Rice’s latest book project is funded by a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship (“Conservative Convergence: The Daily Mail and the Evolution of the Transmedial Newspaper, 1896-1960”), and tracks the ways in which conservative British newspapers, exemplified by the Daily Mail, developed and exploited wider media, from early film to radio, from newsreels to TV. Related to this, Rice has developed a 2-year RSE network grant (2022-2024), entitled The Lost World of Filmstrips, working closely with a range of archives and institutions. His interest in film history and archival research is also evident through Cinema St Andrews, an archival research project established for teaching in 2011.
Rice has served a wide range of administrative roles at St Andrews, including Director of Teaching and Director of Postgraduate Studies. He has also served as a Visiting Professor at Goethe Universität-Frankfurt (2021-2023) and has successfully supervised seven PhD students to completion.
Teaching
Rice has taught (or co-taught) on numerous honours and Mlitt modules, including Film and the Archive; Colonial Cinema; Film and History; Watching the Detectives: Murder, Mystery and the Media; Film Genres, Silent Cinema; and War and Cinema.
PhD supervision
- Wesley Kirkpatrick
- Milo Farragher-Hanks
Selected publications
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Open access
Early edition: the Daily Mail, British newspapers, and the moving image, 1896-1922
Rice, T., 23 Oct 2021, In: Film History. 33, 3, p. 63-93 28 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Films for the colonies: cinema and the preservation of the British Empire
Rice, T., 3 Sept 2019, Oakland, CA: University of California Press. 343 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Open access
War in peace: the American Legion and the continuing service of film
Rice, T., Jan 2018, Cinema’s Military Industrial Complex . Wasson, H. & Grieveson, L. (eds.). University of California Press, p. 95-115Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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“Damage unwittingly done”: D.W. Griffith and the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan
Rice, T., 19 Dec 2017, A Companion to D.W. Griffith . Keil, C. (ed.). Wiley-Blackwell, p. 463-485Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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White robes, silver screens: movies and the making of the Ku Klux Klan
Rice, T., Jan 2016, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 302 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Open access
"Are you proud to be British?": Mobile film shows, local voices and the demise of the British Empire in Africa
Rice, T., 2016, In: Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. 36, 3, p. 331-351Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Chariots of Fire rerun: locating film’s cultural capital on a contemporary stage
Rice, T. & Yumibe, J., Jul 2015, In: Journal of British Cinema and Television. 12, 3, p. 321-341Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Distant Voices of Malaya, Still Colonial Lives
Rice, T., Jul 2013, In: Journal of British Cinema and Television. 10, 3, p. 430-451Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Exhibiting Africa: British Instructional Films and the Empire Series (1925-8)
Rice, T., Oct 2011, Empire and Film. Grieveson, L. & MacCabe, C. (eds.). Palgrave Macmillan, p. 115-133 (Cultural Histories of Cinema).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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From the Inside: The Colonial Film Unit and the Beginning of the End
Rice, T., 2011, Film and the End of Empire. Grieveson, L. & MacCabe, C. (eds.). Palgrave Macmillan, p. 135-153 (Cultural Histories of Cinema).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter