To aid in the selection of videos for your class and research needs, we've created a large number of filmographies on many subject areas.
If you'd like help linking streaming videos to your Canvas Course Reserves or reserving DVDs for you or your students, please contact
mediaservices@american.edu
This is a selective list of video holdings in the American University Library. Filmographies are created by doing multiple keyword searches in the catalog to capture as many titles on a topic as possible.
For complete, up-to-date holdings please search the library catalog search box on the Media Services homepage. (http://www.american.edu/library/mediaservices/) Finding Aids on the same page includes other subject oriented content.
For more information take a look at the Streaming Video Guides and Browsing Collections.
T. S. Eliot. 2005. Six Poets: Searching for Rhyme and Reason: 6 poets, searching for rhyme and reason. 1 streaming video file (19 min.). As a poet, T. S. Eliot did not just modernize, he revolutionized. As critic and publisher, he informed literary theory and promoted a generation of major young writers. This richly resourced program provides a concise biography of Eliot, tracing the key events of his life and highlighting his many contributions to English literature. The program features readings and excerpts from his major poems and critical work, including "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," "Sweeney among the Nightingales," "Gerontion," "The Hollow Men," "Ash Wednesday," The Wasteland, Four Quartets, and The Sacred Wood. Streaming video
T. S. Eliot The waste land. 1987. 1 streaming video file (59 min.). Read by noted actors Michael Gough, Edward Fox, and Eileen Atkins, T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land powerfully expresses the disillusionment and disgust of the post-World War I era in Europe. In this program, Professor Frank Kermode, of Cambridge University; Eliot biographer Peter Ackroyd; and poets Sir Stephen Spender and Craig Raine examine the complex nature of Eliot's influential poem, analyze its appeal, and trace the reasons why it became one of the best-known emblems of the 20th century. Streaming video
Vendage Tardive 2010. 2010. Lannan Foundation videos: Lannan Foundation videos. 1 streaming video file (29 min.). Peter Reading reading from his book "Vendage Tardive". Streaming video
Voices of memory. 2008. The Power of the Word: Power of the word. 1 streaming video file (60 min.). This program features poets Li-Young Lee and Gerald Stern in a poetry reading and in extensive interviews. A main subject of Stern's poetry is memory. His Jewish heritage provides him with the inspiration and direction to resurrect and reconstruct past experiences. Li-Young Lee's poetry reflects his struggle with his Chinese heritage: how to recognize a culture to which he has been inextricably bound by ancestry, but in which he has never lived. Streaming video
Voices of power African-American women. 1999. 1 streaming video file (29 min.). African-American women have captured the moral imagination of mainstream America through their essays, novels, poetry, and other artistic endeavors, breaching the static lines of race, gender, and class. How have their reflections so clearly articulated the hopes and philosophies of so many? In this program, writers Alice Walker and bell hooks and Ohio State University faculty Dr. Martha Wharton, of the departments of African-American studies and women's studies, and Dr. Valerie Lee, of the departments of English and women's studies, examine the emergence of African-American women as popular and powerful voices of social conscience. Streaming video
W. B. Yeats A concise biography. 2011. Famous authors: Famous authors. 1 streaming video file (33 min.). This program from the Famous Authors series begins by contextualizing W.B. Yeats' early life in 19th century Ireland and introducing the Yeats' artistic family and the Irish legends that were so influential in his life and work. Yeats eventually became a ring leader of a group of artists in London called the Tragic Generation. Yeats became known as a political and literary voice of Ireland and an advocate for the performance of Irish drama. Streaming video
W. H. Auden. 2005. Six Poets: Searching for Rhyme and Reason: 6 poets, searching for rhyme and reason. 1 streaming video file (21 min.). A prolific virtuoso of poetic forms and techniques, W. H. Auden achieved literary fame on both sides of the Atlantic. This program traces his life's story and provides a sampling of his very best works, including "Musee des Beaux Arts," "In Memory of W. B. Yeats," "Epitaph on a Tyrant," "Leap Before You Look," and "The Shield of Achilles. Streaming video
W. S. Merwin, reading, 18 October 2000. 2011. Lannan Foundation videos: Lannan Foundation videos. 1 streaming video file (55 min.). W. S. Merwin reads his work on 18 October 2000. Streaming video
W. S. Merwin with Naomi Shihab Nye, conversation, 18 October 2000. 2011. Lannan Foundation videos: Lannan Foundation videos. 1 streaming video file (33 min.). Presents interviews with W. S. Merwin about his life and work, interviewed by Naomi Shihab Nye on 18 October 2000. Streaming video
Walt Whitman. 2005. 1 streaming video file (22 min.). 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 manuscripts accompanies excerpts of letters from Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson, as well as readings from sections of Leaves of Grass, such as "Song of Myself," "I Sing the Body Electric," and "Native Moments. Streaming video
Walt Whitman. 2008. 1 videodisc (120 min.). One of the most-recognized figures in American literary history: poet, patriot, and faithful advocate of democracy. But in his own time, critics denounced Walt Whitman as a "lunatic raving in pitiable delirium". This "American experience" production tells Whitman's life story, from his working class childhood in Long Island to his years as a newspaper reporter in Brooklyn when he struggled to support his impoverished family, then to his reckless pursuit of the attention and affection he craved for his work, to his death in 1892 at the age of 72. Streaming video
Walt Whitman A concise biography. 2011. Famous authors: Famous authors. 1 streaming video file (33 min.). This introduction to the life and poetry of Walt Whitman from the Famous Authors series begins by contextualizing the writer's early life in nineteenth century Brooklyn and Long Island, New York. Whitman took a trip to New Orleans in an attempt to start a newspaper, but he was deeply opposed to slavery and did not fare well in the south. While Leaves of Grass was illiciting both praise and disgust, he became a medical orderly for soldiers in Washington in an attempt to contribute to the Civil War. Finally, Whitman settled in Camden, New Jersey where he reconnected with nature at Timber Creek. Streaming video
The war poets. 93. 1 streaming video file (60 min.). The futility and madness of the First World War was the spur for some of the most moving poetry ever written, but the young men who brought the voice of reason to the Great War were themselves part of a long tradition of war poetry. This program traces the development of the art of war poetry from Anglo-Saxon times to the early 20th century and the works of Brooke, Owen, and Sassoon. Using extensive feature film footage as well as contemporary images, the program brings a new vitality to the checkered tales of heroism, cowardice, luck, valor, and misery which together form the experiences of war over the centuries. Jon Stallworthy of Oxford University, one of the world's foremost authorities on war poetry, analyzes the works. Streaming video
Welcome to the mainland. 95. 1 streaming video file (56 min.). From the jazz-laced street speech of African-American poet Sekou Sundiata's Harlem nights to Palestinian-American Naomi Shihab Nye's delight in the wonder of everyday objects, this program celebrates the cultures of today-and the way those cultures have become part of the American mosaic. Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. Streaming video
Where the soul lives. 2009. The Power of the Word: Power of the word. 1 streaming video file (60 min.). Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, this program features the poets Robert Bly, Lucille Clifton, and W. S. Merwin, reading their works and discussing them. Robert Bly often uses music to emphasize the spiritual nature of poetry. He believes that the aim of poetry is to "drop us into the moist, nurturing underworld where the soul lives. Lucille Clifton's work often focuses on experiences specific to women, and is also influenced by her black heritage. W. S. Merwin examines human relationships, including our relationship with nature. Streaming video
Why we write. 97. 1 streaming video file (60 min.). In this program, several contemporary poets read from their poems and discuss why they write, and for whom. Poets include Robert Hass, Mark Doty, Thylias Moss, Pattiann Rogers, Carol Muske, Gerald Stern, and Yehuda Amichai. Poetic themes include death, aging, self-realization, race, and gender. Rogers, Moss, Muske, and poet Brenda Hillman discuss the role of women in the field of poetry. Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. Streaming video
William Blake. 2005. 1 streaming video file (52 min.). Ignored during his lifetime, the artist and poet William Blake is now a literary institution. How did this reversal come about? How did a republican, dissident printer, who was considered insane by his contemporaries, become transformed into an icon? The author Peter Ackroyd, Blake's latest biographer, is the guide as this program explores late-Georgian London: a world of political ferment and religious dispute, where the winds of revolution were blowing across the sea from America and France and a mad king sat on the English throne. The program examines Blake's artistic achievement and assesses his continuing appeal. Streaming video
William Blake Singing for England. 2000. 1 streaming video file (51 min.). Simply stated, William Blake regarded himself as marked out by fate,says Blake biographer Peter Ackroyd. In this outstanding program, Ackroyd, art historian William Vaughan, Tate Britain's Michael Phillips, and poets Tom Paulin, Kathleen Raine, and Adrian Mitchell discuss Blake's works and examine the events and attitudes that shaped the self-styled prophet of Albion. Excerpts from Blake's writings and images of his paintings and etchings, along with dramatizations of the visionary poet and artist at key moments of his life, underscore his enduring appeal. Though scorned in his own times, today he is hailed as a pillar of Romanticism. A BBCW Production. Streaming video
William Faulkner A concise biography. 2011. Famous authors: Famous authors. 1 streaming video file (35 min.). This overview of the biography and fiction of William Faulkner from the Famous Authors series introduces the major themes of Faulkner's poems, plays, short stories, and novels. The film contextualizes life in the American south in the first half of the 20th century; Faulkner's southern upbringing, family history, and race relations in the wake of the Civil War were a major influence on his fiction. In 1924, Faulkner left his small town of Oxford and spent six months in New Orleans, where he was finally able to see the conditions of his upbringing from a distance and become acquainted with a literary circle with Sherwood Anderson at the center, jump-starting his serious fiction writing. Streaming video
William Wordsworth A concise biography. 2011. Famous authors: Famous authors. 1 streaming video file (37 min.). Opening by introducing William Wordsworth's boyhood home in the Lake District of England, this film from the Famous Authors series offers an overview of the writer's work and biography. The Lake District greatly inspired Wordsworth and resulted in his apparent fascination with nature. The film contextualizes the poet's life at Cambridge and then in France, the ongoing conditions of the French Revolution, and the important relationships of Wordsworth's life, including those with Annette Vallon, Mary Hutchinson, his sister Dorothy, and the poet Samuel Coleridge, within whom he wrote Lyrical Ballads. Streaming video
Wordsworth's spots of time. 2002. 1 streaming video file (57 min.). Filmed at the major locations of the poet's life, this program traces Wordsworth's development by focusing on his famous spots of time,touchstones of place and experience immortalized in his autobiographical poem, The Prelude. Along with readings and dramatizations of works, key ideas in Wordsworth's poetry are analyzed in the context of 18th-century thought by such leading scholars as Professor James Butler of La Salle University, Pamela Woof of the University of Newcastle, and Nigel Leask of Queen's College, Cambridge. Pictures and manuscripts owned by the Wordsworth Trust at Dove Cottage complement a wealth of primary archival material. A 10-minute coda explores the relevance of Wordsworth's poetry today. Streaming video
Yo, la peor de todas = I, the worst of all . 2003. 1 videodisc (107 min.). This historical drama tells the story of Juana Inés de la Cruz, one of the greatest poets of the Spanish Siglo de Oro. In order to pursue her passion for writing, Juana enters the convent. There, she develops an intimate relationship with the vicereine, who inspires her poetry. But when the forces of the Inquisition invade the convent, the women have only each other to turn to. DVD 1162