Summary: This multi-section program examines the relationships between established sociological perspectives-structural functionalism, Marxist theory, and early feminist theory-and the family; investigates how over several decades the decline in marriage, an increase in cohabitation and divorce, and the lowering fertility rate in the U.K. have affected the British nuclear family; and juxtaposes the old...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: In this compelling program, world-renowned author Toni Morrison candidly answers questions regarding how she became a writer, the pain of empathizing with her characters, the sensual nature of her novels, and how it felt to win the Nobel Prize. In addition, she pulls no punches discussing how she first became aware of her racial otherness, how writing for a black audience has kept her work from...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: In April 2010, the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano turned much of the northern hemisphere into an ash-strewn no-fly zone, stranding hundreds of thousands of travelers. But Eyjafjallajökull was just the start. Now, an Icelandic volcano ten times bigger, Katla, has begun to swell and grumble. Two more giants, Hekla and Laki, could erupt without warning. As CGI takes us inside these...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2013
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Summary: As a child of the Spanish Civil War and the repressive post-war era, Carmen Martin Gaite found kindred spirits among the Madrid literati, led by her future husband Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio, during the '50s. In her long and uninterrupted literary career, Gaite chose socially critical topics such as the relationship between the sexes and the differences between provincial and city life. Using...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Facing the reality of what happened in Southeast Asia-and bringing others together to reconcile with it-has become the life work of novelist Maxine Hong Kingston, who teaches Buddhism and creative writing to Vietnam veterans. "In the workshops, [they] break out of the solipsism, the narcissism, the isolation," says Professor Kingston, who was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: Since their appearance in Europe some 300 years ago, the stories of The Thousand and One Nights have entranced Western readers with visions of an exotic, magical Middle East. In this program, actor and director Richard E. Grant revisits the book he loved as a child and seeks to understand its persistent hold on the collective imagination. Grant travels to Paris to discover how the Arabist...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. So spoke Virginia Woolf in 1929 as she discussed the problems of the writer and of women in general. Woolf's talk represents perhaps the most persuasive of all her writings on liberty, literature, and the role of women in her society. Woolf spoke not only about writing, but about writing as a woman-speaking in an age when...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: One of the rare few who have managed to excel in both art and architecture, Maya Lin creates places of refuge and contemplation in highly public spaces. Constructed on an intimate human scale, they invite visitors to touch, feel, respond, and reflect. In this program, the acclaimed sculptor and architect talks with Bill Moyers about a life and a career that has been shaped by her Asian-American...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Following acclaimed poet and memoirist Maya Angelou on a visit to her childhood surroundings in Stamps, Arkansas, this Bill Moyers interview remains a classic of broadcast journalism and a valuable teaching tool for African-American studies. "I was terribly hurt in this town," Angelou tells Moyers, "and vastly loved." She recalls her rapturous discovery of Shakespeare (while savoring a favorite...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: The works of Frida Kahlo, one of the 20th century's most prominent artists, are included in museums and private collections the world over. This documentary incorporates archival material, readings from journals and letters, and interviews with friends and scholars to retrace the life and work of one of Mexico's most highly recognized painters.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Her father was philosopher William Godwin. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was feminism's founder. By pedigree and experience, Mary Shelley was uncannily equipped to write the gothic masterpiece, Frankenstein. This program offers a fresh exploration of her novel, focusing on how Shelley's personal life influenced the book and mirrored it afterwards. Along with reenactments of scenes from her...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: The late Susan Sontag was not a photographer, yet her famous book On Photography is required reading in almost every serious photography course in the world. Her novels and nonfiction books such as Illness as a Metaphor have been translated into a score of languages. And she also wrote and directed films and plays. In this program, the renowned writer and human rights activist talks with Bill...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: For 15 years, National Humanities Medalist Maxine Hong Kingston has been working with veterans-soldiers from World War II, from Vietnam, and now, from Iraq-to convert the ghosts of war into the poetry, fiction, and nonfiction that Kingston believes will help them survive. In this program, Bill Moyers speaks with Kingston about her book Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace, an anthology called...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Illustrated with clips from movie and television adaptations of her novels, this program takes a visually rich approach to understanding the woman behind such classics as Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma. An extensive biographical and psychological profile of the author provides insight into what life was like for a woman in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Filmed at key...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: When Maxine Hong Kingston was growing up in California, she listened to her parents' stories and memories of their native China. In her highly acclaimed memoirs, The Woman Warrior and China Men, she linked those tales of tradition to the story of her own American experience, blending childhood memory, meditation, and magic. They are the most widely taught books by a living American author on...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: A leading voice among American writers, Alice Walker has published books of influential poetry, novels, short stories, essays, and criticism. In this program, Ms. Walker talks with Bill Moyers about a range of subjects, including The Color Purple, whose themes are as relevant today as they were when she wrote the book in 1982; the way in which her life experiences and ancestry are reflected in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Authors Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasrin know about severe censorship firsthand. In this program, Suanne Kelman, of Ryerson University, opens the subject of censoring in literature using Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lady Chatterley's Lover, The Diviners, and the Harry Potter series-all banned at one time or another or under threat of banning-as examples. Expanding on the theme,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Born in Cuba to Chinese parents, award-winning novelist Zoe Valdes has achieved worldwide recognition for portraying the struggles and dreams of women. This program highlights her upbringing, education, and influences, as well as examining several of her most important books, including La Hija del Embajador and Te Di La Vida Entera.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: What were Alice Walker's motivations in writing "Everyday Use"? In this program, the author discusses her short story with her official biographer, Evelyn C. White. Over the course of the interview, Walker talks about the autobiographical aspects of the story, the significance of quilting to African-American women, the perception of class differences, and the important life lessons she wished...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Being black, being a woman, and being a writer is just the most wonderful challenge. It's like having three eyes, three hearts, rather than one, says the author of The Color Purple in this profile, as she relives her journey from an impoverished childhood in rural Georgia to the peace and creativity of her present life in northern California. Alice Walker describes how the Civil Rights movement...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: Raised within the socially restrictive mores of a transient middle-class family and troubled with a stammering problem, Ana Maria Matute took refuge in literature. At 17, she began to use her experiences to probe the themes of lost childhood, injustice, and the lives of the marginalized. She soon developed a fresh prose style that deftly blended fantasy and realism, revitalizing the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program explores the obstacles overcome by six prominent female authors: Louisa May Alcott, Emily Dickinson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, and Alice Walker. On-location footage at sites such as Alcott's Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, complements discussion from an array of critics and experts, including Dr. Carolyn Heilbrun, author of Writing a Woman's...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Has feminist literature gone mainstream? And what place do women's presses have in society as it is today? This program offers valuable insights but no consensus as Gloria Steinem; Germaine Greer; Naomi Wolf; Lynn Crosbie, editor of Click: Becoming Feminists; Virago Press' Lennie Goodings; and Althea Prince, of Women's Press, Canada's oldest feminist publishing house, address these and other...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Recognized from an early age as a poet of remarkable ability, the writer who was to become known as Gabriela Mistral was the first Latin American woman to be awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize, in 1945. Composed of archival footage and commentary from scholars and friends who discuss the personal events that affected her life and infused her work with its themes of tragic love and unfulfilled...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005