Summary: Inhabiting a shrinking pocket of rainforest in Paraguay's Eastern Canindeyu Region, the Ache are one of South America's last hunter-gatherer societies-and in imminent danger of cultural extinction. This program presents an intimate portrait of the Ache in their natural habitat, focusing on the Gatu tribal group. Sequences filmed during extensive stays with the tribe reveal their customs and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: What is pain, and what is its purpose? This program explores various aspects of pain, including how the mind perceives the body's warning messages, whether from a stomach-ache or a chronic condition; the body's ability to control or ignore pain; the effects of nerve damage on the body's early-warning system; and pain caused not by the body, but by the mind.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Every time Laura gets swollen glands, she spends hours on the Internet researching terminal cancer. Kevin lives in fear of contracting HIV-a drop of blood can send him into a state of panic. And the smallest ache convinces Sarah that she could die at any moment. Studies suggest that as many as one in four general-practitioner consultations are for hypochondriacs-or those who suffer from what is...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: In decades past, Native-American artists who wanted to sell to mainstream collectors had little choice but to create predictable, Hollywood-style western scenes. Then came a generation of painters and sculptors led by Allan Houser (or Hazous), a Chiricahua Apache artist with no interest in stereotyped imagery and a belief that his own rich heritage was compatible with Modernist ideas and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: In this TEDTalk, computer scientist Luis von Ahn explains that every time we retype squiggly CAPTCHA letters for online verifications, we are simultaneously helping to digitize old books. The success of his CAPTCHA program led von Ahn to develop more ways to utilize ordinary online activity, or "crowdsource" - resulting in the language-learning site Duolingo, which aims to help users master a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: This is a gritty and painfully real exposition of what it means to be black, poor, and elderly in the U.S. The film crew documents the life of Leonard and Sarah Bass on and off for six months, recording their struggle to survive, watching as well-meaning neighbors and opportunists come and go.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Granny Weatherall (Geraldine Fitzgerald) is a spunky old lady of 80 who bosses her doctor and her children. She seems so strong and in control. Yet she has never had the upper hand in her destiny. One morning, a flood of long-forgotten memories bring her to the realization that of all her accomplishments, she cannot console herself for the shame-filled day she was left standing at the altar....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 1980
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Summary: Developmental psychologists Paul and Margret Baltes proposed a model of adaptive competence for the entire life span, but the emphasis here is on old age. In this program, the Baltes illustrate their SOC (selection, optimization, and compensation) model with engaging vignettes of senior citizens leading fulfilling lives, including writers Betty Friedan and Joan Erikson and dancer Bud Mercer....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 1997
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Summary: This program examines the issue of affirmative action with Lani Guinier, professor of law at the Univ. of Pennsylvania and President Clinton's controversial nominee for Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. Among the many questions examined in the program are: How do blacks and whites differ in their understanding of affirmative action? Is affirmative action still necessary to remedy...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Diversity from immigration keeps cities alive, former Senator Bill Bradley (D-NJ) and other leaders assert in this program; opposing views are also presented, thus summarizing America's immigration debate with mixed evaluations of its capacity for change. Using commentary from several experts-including Michael Teitelbaum, vice chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, and Margie...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: She may be an overzealous crusader. She may be on a power trip. Then again, maybe Jane Elliott has pioneered a truly honest and viable way to talk about racial prejudice-a way in which white people and people of color can explore the subject together. This program documents one of Elliott's diversity training seminars, modeled on an experiment she first conducted as a third-grade teacher in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: In the early 1880s, abetted by the Chinese Exclusion Act, a wave of anti-Chinese sentiment swept across America. This program examines the exclusion years through the stories of Chinese Americans and their families who were kept apart by both ancient custom and U.S. law. These immigrants were trapped between countries, at home neither in the U.S. nor in China. The law of the land, which...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Immigration, racial identity, education, economic development-all of these issues converge on Crenshaw Boulevard, the 23-mile urban artery running through South Los Angeles. This program travels the storied roadway from disadvantaged South Central to the mansions of Palos Verdes overlooking the Pacific. Viewers meet many of the residents and entrepreneurs who breathe life into...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: An exploration of the notion of race, this program follows host Paul Duddridge as he pushes aside society’s taboos to find out what “race” really is. Duddridge organizes a mini-Olympics based on racial identity to demonstrate the fluidity of the concept—he notes that Jews and Arabs will be on the same team—and the participants poke fun at their own tendency to stereotype. With significant input...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Can killers and survivors coexist in peace? That is the crucial question facing Rwanda a dozen years after the genocide that claimed the lives of approximately 800,000 people-and the subject of this multi-award-winning documentary. Using interviews with Joseph Habineza, Minister of Education and Culture; Freddy Mutanguha, director of the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center; and numerous survivors,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program examines current immigration policy within the context of our historical role as a melting pot for diverse nationalities. The growing political debate over the influx of illegal immigrants from Latin America is discussed by political leaders-some of whom advocate rights for the illegals, and some of whom do not. New York Mayor Rudolph Guiliani, Governor of California Pete Wilson,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: Two generations ago it was a recipe for social ostracism; a generation ago the tongues wagged; and now there are some once totally clannish ethnic groups with a 60% rate of intermarriage. This program examines how and why couples of different colors, religions, and ethnic roots are drawn to one another, how their differences affect their marriages, how they deal with their friends, and how...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program examines a major piece of the new American mosaic-a group that is seeking to retain its traditional cultural values while adjusting to life in the U.S. Korean Americans have come into frequent and violent conflict with inner-city African Americans, and have sought, through their own ethnic civic organizations, to overcome the rejection of the community around them.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In this program, Bill Moyers returns to his hometown of Marshall, Texas-discovering, in his words, "a new town perched on the memory of one that's gone." Today it is hoped and expected that all of Marshall's citizens, regardless of racial background, share the responsibilities of living and working in a small town. But there was a time in recent history when the opposite was assumed and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: No one grasps the connections between social activism, electoral politics, and racial issues better than Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), perhaps the most prominent living veteran of the American civil rights movement. In 2007, he received the Robert J. Dole Leadership Prize from the University of Kansas and, in conjunction with the award, granted this in-depth interview before a live audience....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Muslims, blacks, gays, people with disabilities, and immigrants of every ethnicity and color: they and many other groups have stood in the spotlight glare of intolerance, easy targets for every sort of discrimination and violence. What makes people prone to irrational hate, and what steps can individuals and society take to eradicate it? In this program, psychology professors Susan Fiske, of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: A smattering of self-styled experts believe they can assign IQ levels to the world's racial groups. Even if their data were beyond reproach, what does that say about IQ testing? Is it objective or socioeconomically biased? British journalist Rageh Omaar searches for answers in this thoughtful, globe-spanning program. Recounting the turmoil Dr. James Watson stirred up with his 2007 remarks on...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Behind the conscious mind's efforts to judge people on their merits, the subconscious categorizes by details such as gender, race, and age-just as it has done since the dawn of humankind. Can ethnic prejudice be overcome? What is the "stereotype effect"? Are there quantifiable differences that make one race superior to another in sports? Is it possible to visually perceive a person's sexual...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: This episode looks at the black/white paradigm in America today. Co-directed by Lulie Haddad and Orlando Bagwell, the program weaves the personal memoirs of John Edgar Wideman (Fatheralong: A Meditation on Fathers and Sons, Race, and Society) and Jane Lazarre (Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness: A Memoir of a White Mother of Black Sons) with the stories from the staff at King-Drew County Medical...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2003