Summary: From the edgy architecture of the Grande Arche de la Défense to the priceless paintings that line the walls of the Musée d’Orsay, France spends a significant part of its national budget on culture. This program shows viewers how to voice an opinion - positive or negative - on French architecture, ask for information at a museum, and speak analytically about works by the great masters. Also, a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 1994
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Summary: In a consumer society, smart shopping is a virtue-and in matters of healthcare, it is a necessity. This program seeks to demystify the complexities of America's healthcare system by offering indispensable information on healthcare organizations and practitioners, types of health insurance, common legal and ethical considerations, and individual rights as a health consumer. Definitions of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Can the U.S. afford to reform its healthcare system? Can it afford not to, with 46 million Americans lacking health insurance and millions more underinsured? This Fred Friendly Seminar explores the dilemmas and urgently needed policy decisions surrounding what has become, literally, a life-or-death issue. NYU law professor Arthur Miller guides a team of high-profile panelists through a series...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: Cochlear implants could soon make a lifetime of profound deafness a thing of the past-and in the process bring an end to America's vibrant Deaf culture. In this program, NewsHour correspondent Betty Ann Bowser takes a balanced look at the implications of cochlear implant technology on the Deaf community. Dr. John Niparko, director of The Listening Center at Johns Hopkins; King Jordan, president...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: This program considers the debt Western civilization owes to paganism, Christianity, and Islam, showing how each religion has influenced the other and how the art of all three continues to exert an effect on the world. Highlighting the lifelike sculptures of ancient Greece that celebrate what it is to be human; the primitive daubs in Roman catacombs, shimmering Byzantine mosaics, and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: On the fifth anniversary of 9/11, 1,800 delegates gathered at the Congress of World Religions in Montreal to spend a week in ecumenical dialogue. This program captures the wisdom of attendees who, speaking from the podium or offstage, address topics ranging from widespread religious fanaticism, the destabilizing action/reaction spiral of violence, and the misuse of religion for political ends...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: Who is to blame for America's healthcare mess, and how can we fix it? In this ABC News program, John Stossel examines the insurance industry, the need for competition among care providers, and the possibility of combining lower costs with better medicine. Arguing against Michael Moore's documentary Sicko, which advocates government-funded healthcare, Stossel interviews Harvard Business School...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Part one of this program presents the life of Jesus against the backdrop of first-century Judea, inhabited by the Jews and occupied by the forces of the Roman Empire. Was Jesus the long-awaited Messiah? After the Resurrection, Saul of Tarsus, later Paul, became a champion of a budding new religion based on Jesus' teachings: Christianity. Part two traces the spread of the faith and its...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: What prevents minority communities from joining the European mainstream? Is there an appropriate balance between assimilation and preserving one's cultural heritage? This program wrestles with questions of identity-racial, cultural, and sexual-resulting from the startling new diversity of European society. Depicting daily life in immigrant communities on the Continent and in Great Britain, the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: There is an old Japanese adage that "the best food is that which is least prepared." This program looks at Kyoto-style sushi both as a delicacy and as a symbol of Japanese cultural aesthetics. Footage of Kitamura Norio and Kitakura Hiroyuki-two of Japan's foremost sushi chefs-illustrates their specialized approaches to oshi sushi and nigiri sushi while capturing the care they put into every...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: In this program, Dennis Wholey has a conversation about Native American religions with Suzan Shown Harjo, executive director of The Morning Star Institute in Washington, D.C. Topics of discussion include the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978; some common aspects of the approximately 300 remaining Native American religions being practiced in the U.S. today; the concepts of a supreme...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Student success in the classroom begins with a top-down commitment to a clearly stated mission emphasizing the importance of academic achievement. This program demonstrates how a school-wide mission statement-monitored to ensure that it is carried out and reinforced through public recognition of students and teachers who exemplify it-can promote an environment conducive to learning.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: In animism, good and bad spirits exercise an influence on humans. The shaman communes with the spirits in order to heal his tribal constituency. These and other less traditional beliefs, practices, and rituals are the topics of this program. Millenarianism is discussed as a nostalgic belief in a 1,000-year reign of the saints either before, or immediately after, the return of Christ. Astrology...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Key figures either directly or tangentially connected to the progress of atheism-the Baron d'Holbach, Thomas Paine, Jeremy Bentham, Charles Darwin, George Jacob Holyoake, Sigmund Freud, and Karl Marx-are profiled in this program as Jonathan Miller draws links between atheism and the realms of utilitarian and secularist philosophy, evolutionary science, psychology, and politics. Is religion...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2004
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Summary: The history of the three religions of the Book is a convoluted story of deep-seated hostilities relieved by all-too-brief periods of coexistence and cooperation. Filmed from a Christian perspective, this program looks at the sectarian and interdenominational clashes that have bloodied the centuries while pointing out efforts to achieve a lasting, mutually supportive peace. As the world enters...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Jacob Needleman, author and professor of philosophy and comparative religion, says he writes for people like himself who want to return to the basic questions: Who am I? Why am I on Earth? How do I engage in making a living and still keep my soul? In this program with Bill Moyers, Needleman discusses the role of money in our society and its power to shape our culture and our souls.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: In Luang Prabang, amidst the customary begging of Buddhist monks and the irksome giddiness of camera-wielding tourists, history lies waiting on street after street of traditional architecture. This program takes viewers into the heart of the Laotian city, where builders and bureaucrats contest the fate of land, houses, and public structures while traditional artisans and architects work to...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: Promoted in its time as a celebration—or at least a fully informed study—of foreign ethnicities and customs, the 1900 World’s Fair is recognized today as a spectacle of Eurocentric myopia. This program lays bare that conceit as it interweaves archival photographs, film clips, and posters from the Fair with commentary from renowned art historians. Offerings from museum collections across the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Throughout history, homosexuality has been censured by some of the world's major religions-and often punished to the severest degree. This program studies the scriptures and doctrines of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam to understand why, and then contrasts their stances with those of Hinduism, Sikhism, and the Rome of Hadrian. A compassionate and compelling discussion of gay marriage and child...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: At the core of the Protestant Revolution was a new emphasis on exploring and questioning the natural world. This program shows how a religious upheaval that began a half-millennium ago led to the art, literature, and science of today's Western society. The film makes the case that a humanistic approach to art first grew out of the Protestant drive to remove images from European churches in the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Whether viewed as a spiritual matter of immorality or a secular concern with maintaining family lineage, premarital and extramarital sex have caused consternation since ancient times. In this program, theologians Melissa Raphael and Gavin D'Costa, author Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood, and others explain what constitutes adultery and talk about how Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Sikhism...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Where was golf invented? And soccer? And polo? Research has revealed that the answer to all three questions is China. In this program, these and other sports-archery, acrobatics, the martial art wushu, dragon boat racing, and 15-pole ball, a form of bowling-are each set securely within the contexts of Chinese history and culture as authentic reenactments bring these ancient games (and some of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program examines religious guidelines designed to regulate and add meaning to the sex lives of married couples of the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh faiths. Topics include when intercourse is permissible and when it should be avoided, whether it is sinful for men and women to use contraception, what type of genital contact is allowable, whether marital sex for non-procreative...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: For years, Turkey has been run by a stridently secular business and political elite, while its devout Muslim citizens have been pushed to the political and economic fringes. But now, even the most committed Muslims are embracing Western-style capitalism and commerce-and are ascending in Turkish society at the ballot box and in big business. This Wide Angle documentary captures a modern-and to...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006