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- Ethnographic Video Online, Royal Anthropological Institute Teaching Edition This link opens in a new window Ethnographic Video Online, Royal Anthropological Institute Teaching Edition contains a curriculum-aligned collection of videos and segments curated to support the teaching of introductory anthropology courses. Each video and segment within this collection are accompanied by a teaching guide providing background information, lesson plans, and classroom exercises and activities.
- Ethnographic Video Online, Volume I-II: Foundational Films This link opens in a new window Ethnographic Video Online, Vol. I-II: Foundational Films contains classic and contemporary ethnographies, documentaries and shorts from every continent, providing teachers visual support to introduce and contextualize hundreds of cultural groups and practices around the world.
- Ethnographic Video Online, Volume III: Indigenous Voices This link opens in a new window Ethnographic Video Online, Vol. III: Indigenous Voices contains documentaries, feature films and shorts made by and for indigenous people and communities. Topics are simultaneously local and global, with particular emphasis on the human effects of climate change, sustainability, indigenous and local ways of interpreting history, cultural change, and traditional knowledge and storytelling.
- Ethnographic Video Online, Volume IV: Festivals and Archives This link opens in a new window Ethnographic Video Online, Vol. IV: Festivals and Archives contains award-winning titles from contemporary ethnographic film festivals. The collection also includes field recordings and edited films by students and faculty from universities and institutions around the world, including Berkeley Media and Manchester's Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology.
- Academic Video Online This link opens in a new window Academic Video Online delivers more than 67,000 titles spanning a range of subject areas including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more. It includes documentaries, films, demonstrations, and other content types. Films in the Boston University Libraries catalog are licensed to Boston University for educational and research use only, for BU students, faculty, and staff.
- BU Libraries Search (BULS) This link opens in a new window BU Libraries Search provides a single place to search for a wide variety of academic material provided by the library. The material covered by the search includes books, journals, scores, video and audio recordings, and other physical items held by the library. The search also covers ebooks and ejournals owned by the library, as well as online material provided by the library from a variety of sources.
- Kanopy This link opens in a new window Kanopy is a provider of documentaries, training films, and theatrical releases available as streaming video. Clips from the videos can be embedded in presentations or shown in class. Films in the Boston University Libraries catalog are licensed to Boston University for educational and research use only, for BU students, faculty, and staff.
Browse Films
- Strange Beliefs: Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard, 1902-1973 (streaming, Academic Video Online) Edward Evans-Pritchard was the first trained anthropologist to do work in Africa, where he lived among the Azande and studied their belief in witchcraft. Later, he worked with the Nuer tribe in the Sudan. His work on witchcraft caused philosophers to ask how rational thinking could be defined; his study of tribal organization intrigued political theorists; his attention to the sophisticated religious sentiments of so-called primitive peoples has strongly influenced theologians.
- Coming of Age, Margaret Mead (1901-1978) (streaming, Academic Video Online) The most widely read, and best known anthropologist is probably Margaret Mead, an American who went study adolescence in the South Sea-Islands at the age of 23. Although her fieldwork has been criticised, she was nevertheless one of the foremost fieldworkers of her day. In America, Bali and New Guinea she examined child development, sex and temperament to see what role society has in making people what they are. Adolescence was a time of emotional stress and personal conflict in America and Europe. Mead claimed that in Samoa, adolescence was in many ways the most enjoyable and happy time of life.
- The shackles of tradition - Franz Boas (1858-1942) (streaming, Academic Video Online) Central Television's major documentary series looks at the first anthropologists to stop 'armchair theorising' and go out to live among the peoples who so interested them.
- The History of Sociology (streaming, Academic Video Online) This program traces the history of sociology through the works of such figures as Comte, Marx, Weber, and Mead. It covers major sociological movements and features leading sociologists discussing contemporary social challenges.
- Crash Course Sociology: Émile Durkheim on Suicide & Society (Streaming, Academic Video Online) Now that we’ve talked a little bit about how sociology works, it’s time to start exploring some of the ideas of the discipline’s founders. First up: Émile Durkheim. We’ll explain the concept of social facts and how Durkheim framed sociology as a science. We’ll introduce the idea of common consciousness and how Durkheim believed it binds society together. We’ll also talk about Durkheim’s studies on suicide and how he applied his concepts to a specific social problem.
- Crash Course Sociology: Max Weber & Modernity (Streaming, Academic Video Online) We are wrapping up our overview of sociology’s core frameworks and founding theorists with a look Max Weber and his understanding of the modern world. We’ll explore rationalization and the transition from traditional to modern society. We’ll also discuss bureaucracy, legitimacy, and social stratification in the modern state. Finally, we’ll see why Weber was so worried about the modern world.
- Crash Course Sociology: Karl Marx & Conflict Theory (Streaming, Academic Video Online) Today we’ll continue to explore sociology’s founding theorists with a look at Karl Marx and his idea of historical materialism. We’ll discuss modes of production, their development, and how they fit into Marx’s overall theory of historical development, along with class struggle and revolution. We’ll also discuss how Marx’s ideas gave rise to Gramsci’s idea of hegemony, and to conflict theories more generally.
- Young Doctor Freud (streaming, Academic Video Online) This documentary, by filmmaker David Grubin, traces the early life of Sigmund Freud from his birth in 1856 to the publication of his landmark book, The Interpretation Of Dreams, in 1900. Part Two follows Freud's research and his examines his revolutionary theories, now part of the fabric of 20th-century thought and shaping contemporary notions of identity, memory, childhood, and sexuality.
- The history of psychology. Volume II, Freud, Jung, and psychoanalysis (streaming, Academic Video Online) Darwin's theories of evolution and adaptation open new vistas in the role of human consciousness as psychology embraces the scientific work of Hemholtz, Wundt, James and Munsterberg, setting the stage for the work of Freud, Jung and Adler.
- Claude Levi-Strauss in His Own Words (dvd) When it comes to influence over the fields of anthropology, linguistics, mythology, and pop culture, few names loom larger than that of French author/anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss. This documentary reviews the revered intellectual's life and career, offering a compelling account of the revolutionary thinking that transformed generations of Western thought.
Browse Podcasts
- Fresh Air: How A Few 'Renegade' Thinkers Helped Usher In A New Era Of Anthropology In his new book, Gods of the Upper Air, Charles King tells the story of Franz Boas, Margaret Mead and the other 20th century anthropologists who challenged outdated notions of race, class and gender.
- BBC From Savage to Self: Omnibus Part 1 Farrah Jarral tells the intriguing and unexpected story of anthropology, and examines how a discipline which started studying the so-called 'savage' other has now turned its gaze on every society.
- BBC From Savage to Self: Omnibus Part 2 In this second omnibus edition, Farrah investigates the tangled history of anthropologists during times of war, she hears how anthropology suffered a crisis of conscience as colonialism came to an end, and how some anthropologists responded by getting much more involved in the lives of those they were studying.
- BBC From Savage to Self: Anthropology is Born GP and anthropological enthusiast Farrah Jarral tells the amazing and unexpected story of anthropology. From its earliest roots studying 'savage' and 'primitive' cultures during the imperial era, through living among them in the post-colonial period, to the sometimes self-obsessed study of our own societies during the globalised present, Farrah traces the history of this influential discipline.
- BBC From Savage to Self: Participating and Observing Farrah Jarral tells the story of how Bronislaw Malinowski changed anthropology forever.
- BBC From Savage to Self: The Colonial Encounter Farrah Jarral continues her exploration of the history of anthropology, looking at the colonial encounter. In this episode she examines how closely anthropology was tied to colonialism, how major anthropological collections were built during the colonial period, and how quasi-scientific racism and some of the underlying attitudes towards 'savage' societies lead to a dark period in anthropological history.
- BBC From Savage to Self: Culture Goes Plural Farrah Jarral continues her journey through the history of anthropology. In this episode she explores the legacy of one of the most influential anthropologists of all: Franz Boas.
- BBC From Savage to Self: Coming of Age Farrah Jarral concludes the first week of her series on the history of anthropology by looking at the remarkable legacy of Margaret Mead.
- Give Theory A Chance: Erin McDonnell on Max Weber n this episode we are joined by Erin Metz McDonnell, Kellogg Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame and author of the recently published Patchwork Leviathan: Pockets of Bureaucratic Effectiveness in Developing States. Erin introduces us to the “budgetary unit”–a powerful, but under-utilized Weberian term–and discusses how she expands Weber’s theorization of bureaucracy through her fieldwork in Ghana.
- Give Theory a Chance: Jeffrey Montez de Oca on Karl Marx In this episode we speak to Jeffrey Montez de Oca an Associate Professor of Sociology and the founding director of the Center for the Critical Study of Sport at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. Montez de Oca shares tales from his circuitous path to Marxism and reflects on how he came to realize that Karl Marx provides the tools necessary to help us understand the alienation and inequalities brought about by capitalism.
- Give Theory a Chance: Seth Abrutyn on Émile Durkheim In this episode we are joined by Seth Abrutyn, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia. Abrutyn joins us to speak about his initial encounters with the writings of Emile Durkheim and how his current research on suicide was both inspired by and offers important correctives to Durkheim’s famous work.
