Summary: The aim of these lectures is to make viewers feel welcome and comfortable in the company of paintings. By focusing on 65 masterpieces of Western painting, Professor William Kloss offers a vivid, visceral encounter with genius, shining light on the unique technical, stylistic, and expressive achievements of each painting. From the 14th century to the 20th, the images are examined for their...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: Teaching Company 2010
Copies Available at Woodmere
2 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 709 WORCall number: DVD 709 WOR
Copies Available at Interlochen
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: Great DVD 759 World 2010Summary: The development of the arts in Europe from the Middle Ages to the modern era is an astonishing record of cultural achievement, from the breathtaking architecture of Gothic cathedrals to the daring visual experiments of the Cubist painters. We all have our favorite artists, periods, or styles from this immensely rich tradition, but how many of us truly know the full sweep of European art? How...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: Teaching Co. 2005
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 709 HISSummary: Filmed on location in Stratford-on-Avon, celebrated Shakespearean actor Alan Howard presents some of the Bard’s best-known works. Poems include… “All the world’s a stage” “To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow” “Hark, hark! the lark” “O, for a Muse of fire” St. Crispin’s Day speech “Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day” Queen Mab speech “What mean you, Caesar? Think you for walk...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 1997
View online at AVOD
Summary: Imagine having written 38 plays…being an actor who became the most popular playwright of his time…and who’s legacy was to become the most enduring playwright of all time. Imagine writing something some 400 years ago, and having us stand here in a theater today still exploring, enjoying, and marveling at those golden words? Join our troupe of actors in various stages of rehearsal, presenting...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2002
View online at AVOD
Summary: This course introduces the student to the history of the English language, from its origins as a dialect of the Germanic-speaking peoples, through the literary and cultural documents of its 1500 year span, to the state of American speech of the present day.
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: Teaching Co. 2008
Copies Available at Woodmere
2 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 420.9 HISCall number: DVD 420.9 HIS
Summary: Founded in 1230, Scotland's Pluscarden Abbey still pulses with the prayers and spiritual pursuits of Benedictine monks. Abbot Hugh Gilbert describes their work in reassuringly human terms, framing the Christian battle against Satanic evil as an inner struggle within one's own psyche. But, as this program shows, the culture which brought Pluscarden into existence was rigidly institutional-and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: This production is part of the historic 1998 staging of the Corpus Christi Cycle in York, England, and captures the majesty and color of the original 14th- to 16th-century plays. Sponsored by the Company of Butchers, performed on a story wagon on the streets of York amidst an enraptured crowd, and using medieval materials and techniques, the performance strives for authenticity. The affecting...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Cook, William R. (William Robert)
Summary: Professor Cook leads you on an engaging and energetic discussion on Alexis de Tocqueville, his journey, his writing of Democracy in America and, most of all, his thoughts on the young nation he was observing. For Tocqueville, it seems, had opinions about almost everything he encountered in America, and not exclusively politics and "classical" issues such as the nature of the judiciary and the...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: Teaching Company 2004
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 320.973 TOCSummary: Beowulf is the oldest written epic in English literature. In this program, Dr. Robert DiNapoli-teaching fellow in Old and Middle English at the University of Birmingham, England-and Professor John Burrow of Bristol University examine the symbolism and the influence of Christianity in Beowulf and other masterpieces of English and Germanic poetry. The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Dream of the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Although rooted in religious misogyny and crude anatomical knowledge, the sexual mores of the medieval era were surprisingly complex. This program explores the attitudes and behaviors of a sexual culture that was by turns romantic, transactional, and perverse. Documents and historical accounts include the story of Christina of Markyate, who defied marital conventions and maintained a lifelong...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Dise, Robert L.
Summary: (THIS IS A SET. Book and DVDs must be checkout together).
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: Teaching Company 2009
Copies Available at Woodmere
2 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 930 ANCCall number: DVD 930 ANC
Summary: With the intensity and commitment of an ancient Norse warrior, Benjamin Bagby brings the epic poem Beowulf to incandescent life. This program documents Bagby's brilliant iteration of the saga before a live audience in Helsingborg, Sweden-demonstrating the spellbinding qualities of both the poem and the performer. Reciting the entire 1,062-line Grendel story in the original Old English and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Written around 1400 in Middle English by an unknown hand, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a mysterious poem about an uncanny event that takes place in the legendary realm of King Arthur. In this program, renowned Gawain translator Simon Armitage seeks a richer understanding of the poem by walking the fading trail that ends at the Green Chapel, the climax point of the famously alliterative...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Writing in the late 1200s, the Spanish nobleman Ramon Lull listed various duties which no knight could ignore. They included fidelity to the monarch, defense of the Christian faith-and, only slightly lower on the list, maintaining order among the tenants on one's estate. This program examines the means by which such political "ideals" were implemented and enforced during the Middle Ages....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: The richly embroidered story of King Arthur as set down by Sir Thomas Malory during the Middle Ages has unfailingly intrigued generations of readers. P. J. C. Field, one of the world's top authorities on Malory and president of the British branch of the International Arthurian Society; Helen Cooper, editor of the Oxford World's Classics edition of Le Morte Darthur; and medievalist Kevin J....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Recently re-translated by Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, Beowulf has caused a sensation in both the U.S. and the U.K. In this program, NewsHour correspondent Elizabeth Farnsworth speaks with Heaney about his attraction to that epic poem, the probable background of the bard who created the original, similarities between Old English and bits of Anglo-Saxon that still crop up in rural Ireland, and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Camelot’s court was home to lords and ladies, knights and sorcerers. The mythic tales of King Arthur, Lancelot, and Guinevere inspired stories, books, movies, and a Broadway classic. In this episode of Ancient Mysteries, historians and archaeologists lead us throughout England and Wales in search of Camelot and the truth behind one of the Western World’s most beloved legends.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 1994
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
View online at AVOD
Summary: Medieval science wasn't nonsense: it could conceive of a spherical Earth, for example. But the medieval scholar discerned both natural and supernatural forces at work in the cosmos, reading an eclipse as a sign from God as well as the result of planetary movement, and populating even the most rigorous maps of the era with sea monsters. This program explores that fascinating conceptual dichotomy...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: What makes the promise of Camelot still resonate in the 21st century? In this program, Barbara and Alan Lupack, authors of King Arthur in America and Arthurian Literature by Women; Debra Mancoff, author of The Arthurian Revival in Victorian Art; and Kevin J. Harty, author of King Arthur on Film, New Essays on Arthurian Cinema, discuss the enduring fascination with King Arthur in Britain and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: A scholarly program that reaches out to students of The Canterbury Tales to relate its characters and themes to everyday life in late-14th-century England. Period art of exceptional richness is combined with location photography that retraces the April pilgrimage to Archbishop Becket's shrine at Canterbury; excerpts are read from various tales; and the famous beginning is heard in Middle...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Cultivating an appreciation of the English classics requires studying the mother tongue as it was originally spoken. In this program, Dr. Joseph Gallagher brings language to life by reciting examples of Old, Middle, and Early Modern English in their original dialects. In addition, he discusses the evolution of English syntax and morphology. A dramatization of a portion of Beowulf is also...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This beautifully dramatized version of the late-14th-century poem offers a bonanza to the English teacher: one of the best known of the Arthurian legends, a portrait of life in Arthurian days as the Pearl poet imagined it, a baker's dozen of discussion topics about human virtue and human imperfectability-and a fascinating plot involving a challenge by the Green Knight (green is of course the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This enchanting program revives the drama and pageantry of the medieval mystery play as performed by the venerable guilds of York, England. Perched atop pageant wagons in the streets of their home city, guild members and townspeople in period costumes enact scenes from eleven plays of the Corpus Christi Cycle: Creation to the Fifth Day, The Creation of Adam and Eve, The Fall of Adam and Eve,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005