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
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Summary: In this program, Pulitzer Prize-winner Alice Walker and renowned Langston Hughes biographer Arnold Rampersad talk about "The Poet Laureate of Harlem" with award-winning filmmaker Bruce Schwartz. Together they discuss experiences that shaped young Langston, how he came to be a writer, the beauty of his writing style, his practice of reaching out to aspiring writers, and the Harlem Renaissance as...
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: Robert, a blind man and now a widower, has come to visit his friend and her husband. Prompted by a television show, the apprehensive husband asks Robert if he really knows what a cathedral is: his answer is a lesson in how to truly see. This dramatization of Raymond Carver's classic short story "Cathedral" presents a minimalist exploration of loneliness, vision, and personal spirituality. An...
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: This moving dramatization of Tillie Olsen's frequently anthologized "I Stand Here Ironing" is an unvarnished exploration of an impoverished single mother's ambivalence toward her worth as a parent and her 19-year-old daughter's future. Rich in subtext, the highly metaphorical story-penned in a stark and dramatic fashion devoid of cliche and sentimentality-raises important questions about...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005