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American literature History 19th century American literature History 20th century American literature History 21st century British literature History and criticism English literature Middle English, 1100-1500 Hughes, Langston Irish literature History and criticism Literature History and criticism Literature, Medieval Walker, Alice, 1944-Filter By Series
6 poets, searching for rhyme and reason Alice Walker Ancient civilizations (New York, N.Y.) Canterbury Tales (New York, N.Y.) Core curriculum video libraries (Cambridge educational (Firm)) Core curriculum video library Langston Hughes Sophocles (New York, N.Y.) Tracing the Arthurian tradition Ultimate media librarian collectionFilter By Subjects
American literature History 19th century American literature History 20th century American literature History 21st century British literature History and criticism English literature Middle English, 1100-1500 Hughes, Langston Irish literature History and criticism Literature History and criticism Literature, Medieval Walker, Alice, 1944-Filter By Series
6 poets, searching for rhyme and reason Alice Walker Ancient civilizations (New York, N.Y.) Canterbury Tales (New York, N.Y.) Core curriculum video libraries (Cambridge educational (Firm)) Core curriculum video library Langston Hughes Sophocles (New York, N.Y.) Tracing the Arthurian tradition Ultimate media librarian collectionSummary: I have the strength to walk my own path, no matter how hard, in my search for reality, and not cling to the splendid wagon of desperate illusions. A writer of novels, short stories, folktales, plays, and essays, Zora Neale Hurston combined a hunger for research and a desire to penetrate the deepest of popular beliefs with a truly exquisite narrative talent. This illuminating biography of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, a portrait of friendship and loneliness, is a tribute to the half million who headed to California in search of work and the American dream. In this program, Dr. Susan Shillinglaw of the Center for Steinbeck Studies discusses labor exploitation in the Salinas valley during the Depression era to reinforce an appreciation of the precarious lifestyle faced by...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: In Monroeville, Alabama, Harper Lee's model for Maycomb, To Kill a Mockingbird is celebrated as a tribute to Southern life. This hard-edged program juxtaposes white and black experiences in the racially segregated South of the 1930s-1960s to deepen the understanding of the novel's portrayal of racial tension and tolerated judicial bias. Interviews, archival footage, and photographs combine to...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Written in the 14th century, The Canterbury Tales has stood the test of time as a landmark in the development of English literature. This innovative "frame story" owes its classic standing and impact to the diversity both of the narrators and of the styles of tales they tell. In this program, expert commentators Dr. Christiania Whitehead and Dr. Peter Mack, both of the University of Warwick,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Like Malory's Le Morte Darthur, the anonymously authored Sir Gawain and the Green Knight represents a watershed in the development of the Arthurian tradition. Drawing on insights from Nicholas Perkins, a specialist on medieval English literature and manuscripts at the University of Cambridge; Arthurian expert Kevin J. Harty, of La Salle University; and Helen Cooper, authority on medieval...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Why do plays well over two millennia old still speak to audiences today? This program traces Greek theater from ancient harvest rites to the golden age of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes. Key scenes from Antigone, Oedipus Tyrannus, Medea, and Lysistrata show how these works remain relevant by exploring the timeless themes of honor, class, gender, sexuality, and politics....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Sophocles often won the leading prize at the Dionysia, the principal dramatic festival of Athens; but Oedipus the King was a runner-up, winner of the second prize. Posterity, however, considers the play second to none. The play tells the beginning of the Oedipus saga, setting the stage and creating the characters who will continue the story to its conclusion in Antigone. With Michael...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: When excavation in downtown Manhattan unearthed an 18th-century Negro burial ground, New Yorkers were reminded that slavery was not limited to the South. This program explores an often-overlooked chapter in the history of the city and the colonies in general by examining the oldest slave cemetery ever found in North America. Scholars and leading experts conduct archaeological and forensic...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Aztec myth prophesied that a great city would one day stand on the site where an eagle, perched on a cactus with a serpent in its mouth, was found. Today, Mexico City stands on this mythical site. Although the Aztec Empire fell on April 28, 1521, when Hernando Cortes and his army defeated Montezuma, traces of the thousand-year-old pre-Columbian empire still survive and influence world culture....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Maggie sees the old family quilt-an heirloom already promised to her-as something with practical utility as well as tradition. Her educated, social activist sister wants to hang it on the wall as folk art. With whom will their mother side? A study in class differences and the reclamation of Black history, Alice Walker's short story "Everyday Use" is beautifully realized in this dramatization.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: On a "bright, frozen day" in Mississippi, 95-year-old Phoenix Jackson makes her mythic journey into town for the medicine her grandson needs. Touching upon themes of family, love, aging, and poverty, this dramatization of Eudora Welty's classic story "A Worn Path" provides both a heroic image of the human spirit enduring against tremendous odds and a poignant commentary on the African-American...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program is a comprehensive portrait of John Steinbeck and the America he depicted, providing students with an appreciation of one of the 20th century's definitive literary voices. Incorporating historic events ranging in magnitude from the devastating Dust Bowl to poignant local histories, Steinbeck portrayed a nation ravaged by poverty and injustice, in which his characters, often drawn...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: I was saved from sin when I was going on 13. But not really saved. It happened like this. So begins this powerful dramatization of "Salvation," Langston Hughes' eloquent autobiographical story that illustrates how his aunt's well-meaning efforts to bring him into the spiritual fold resulted in a moral crisis. Calmly waiting for Jesus to appear to him in the hot, crowded church, young Langston's...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: While many of her literary peers achieved notoriety, "the woman in white" remained virtually unknown-by choice. The self-imposed obscurity of Emily Dickinson is just one of many aspects of her life that this program explores. Blending daguerreotypes, paintings, manuscripts, excerpts from Dickinson's letters, and readings from nearly a dozen of her poems, this program presents the biography of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Touted as one of the first major feminist writers, Charlotte Perkins Gilman spent her life fighting to liberate women from the yoke of domesticity. This is a stunning BBC dramatization of Gilman's autobiographical account of a woman driven to madness by the repressive mores of Victorian culture. Stephen Dillon as the husband, John, and Julia Watson as the despondent heroine give stellar...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Was there evil lurking in the gloomy New England woods the night that young Goodman Brown went on his secret errand? Or did he bring the evil with him, locked within his own heart? This program features an outstanding adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic tale-shot on location in historic Salem-that deftly captures the story's mystery and menace. In addition, a discussion of the life of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: A self-styled sketch runs, "Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos." He could have added journalist, carpenter, nurse, and one of the greatest poets in English. This program presents a unique literary biography, tracing Whitman's childhood, various careers, and the evolution of the masterpiece that proved his lifelong work, Leaves of Grass. A collage of photos, paintings, and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005