One week after the 2016 presidential election, white nationalists gathered in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the victory of President-elect Donald Trump. Addressing the crowd, the far-right leader Richard Spencer exclaimed, “Hail Trump! Hail our people!” to fanatical cheers and Nazi salutes. The Atlantic’s cameras captured exclusive footage of this moment, and the clip was shared widely on news networks and social-media platforms around the world.

WHITE NOISE, The Atlantic’s first feature documentary and Daniel Lombroso’s feature film debut, is the result of a four-year commitment to expose the roots of rising white nationalism in the U.S. and abroad. The film is a deeply reported journey through the underbelly of the alt-right, bringing viewers an unfiltered, clear-eyed look at a powerful extremist movement.

Join the Center for Jewish History for a screening of WHITE NOISE followed by a panel conversation with director and journalist Daniel Lombroso,Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, President of the Center for Jewish History and Professor of History at Fairfield University, and Anna Duensing, a historian specializing in evolving global politics of white supremacy across the twentieth century. They will discuss the ideas the alt-right has unleashed and how the movement has succeeded in infiltrating mainstream political discourse and shaping the direction of the United States. 

Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HncFO8Sujvk&t=2s. 

Fascism in America: Past and Present, edited by Gavriel D. Rosenfeld and Janet Ward, will be available for sale and signing by both editors after the screening and discussion.

About the Speakers
Daniel Lombroso is a director and journalist who spent the last decade building the Oscar-nominated video departments at The New Yorker and The Atlantic. His debut feature film, WHITE NOISE, based on his four years reporting inside the white power movement, premiered in 2020 to critical acclaim. It was named one of the top documentaries of the year by Vox and The Boston Globe. His short, AMERICAN SCAR, received an Honorable Mention for the Grand Jury Prize at DocNYC and was nominated for a National Magazine Award. His latest film, NINA & IRENA, is Executive Produced by Errol Morris and was one of the most celebrated short documentaries of 2023. Lombroso’s work has premiered at Sundance, TIFF, IDFA, and been recognized with seven Vimeo Staff Picks. He was on last year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 list. 

Gavriel D. Rosenfeld is President of the Center for Jewish History and Professor of History at Fairfield University. He is the author of numerous books, including the co-edited volume (with Janet Ward), Fascism in America: Past and Present (Cambridge University Press, 2023) and The Fourth Reich: The Specter of Nazism from World War II to the Present (Cambridge University Press, 2019). He is an editor at the Journal of Holocaust Research and edits the blog The Counterfactual History Review.

Anna Duensing is a historian specializing in African American history, transnational social movements, and the evolving global politics of white supremacy across the twentieth century. She received her Ph.D. in History and African American Studies and an M.A. concentration in Public Humanities from Yale University and is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia. She is working on her first book manuscript, tentatively entitled Fascism Is Already Here: Civil Rights and the Making of a Black Antifascist Tradition. She is also the host of a new podcast, “What It Is and How to Fight It,” which offers listeners a variety of perspectives on the question of fascism in the United States, past and present, through interviews with authors and activists.