Related Guides
Image Databases
- Associated Press Images Collection This link opens in a new window
Associated Press Images Collection is a searchable collection of recent and historical photos from the Associated Press, plus AP graphics, articles, and brief sound clips.
- ARTstor This link opens in a new window
ARTstor is a database of images from museums, artists, libraries, colleges and universities, scholars, private collections, and photo archives available for teaching, education, and scholarship, with all images cleared for educational use.
Film & Sound Databases
Film & Sound Databases
- Ethnographic Video Online, Volume I-II: Foundational Films This link opens in a new window
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
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
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.
- Ethnographic Video Online, Royal Anthropological Institute Teaching Edition This link opens in a new window
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Music & Performing Arts (Audio & Video Collections) This link opens in a new window Music & Performing Arts' collections include American Music, Classical, Contemporary World, Jazz, Popular, Smithsonian's Global Sound, Ethnographic Sound Archives, American Film Scripts, Asian American Drama, Black Drama, North American Drama, and Theatre in Context. Search results include links to the full text of the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online (1997-2001), with additional audio examples.
- Ethnographic Sound Archives Online This link opens in a new windowEthnographic Sound Archives Online brings together over 2,000 hours of previously unpublished historic field recordings from around the world, alongside their supporting field notes and ethnographers' metadata, opening new paths for the study of music in its cultural context.
- Ethnomusicology: Global Field Recordings (AM Explorer) Delve into the cultural study of music and explore content from across the globe with this diverse and comprehensive collection. Produced in collaboration with the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive, the material in this collection includes thousands of audio field recordings and interviews, educational recordings, film footage, field notebooks, slides, correspondence and ephemera from over 60 fields of study.
Browse Selected Films
- Music for a Goddess (streaming, Academic Video Online) This narrated video explores the sacred music, dance, and rituals of devidasis and devidasas, women and men dedicated to the goddess Renuka/Yellamma.
- Of Beauty & Deities: Music & Dance of India (streaming, Academic Video Online) Part of Eve A. Ma's series about world music and dance, "Of Beauty & Deities" explores the music and dance of southern India, especially the classical "bhatatanatyam."
- Navakalevar (New Embodiment) (streaming, Academic Video Online) In Orissa on the eastern coast of India, the temple of Jagannath in Puri is an ancient center of pilgrimage for Hindus. Over the centuries, they have flocked there for the worship of Vishnu in the form of Jagannath, Lord of the Universe, seated in the temple with his brother Balabhadra and sister Subhadra.
- Kamakha through prayerful eyes (streaming, Academic Video Online) This "finely crafted, lyrical exploration of a sacred site" creatively captures the complexity and mystery surrounding Kamakhya Temple, an ancient place of fertility worship in India's northeastern state of Assam. This temple is unique among Hindu temples of the Devi (the Goddess) in that it enshrines no image of Her.
- Holy Men and Fools (streaming, Academic Video Online) The film narrates the story of Uma Giri, a Swedish woman who has become a Hindu nun, called Uma Giri. She is one of the few western women to be accepted into the most radical order of wandering Hindu ascetics.
- The Great Gathering (streaming, Academic Video Online) This remarkable documentary provides a rare and fascinating study of the history, meaning, and diverse participants of the Maha Kumbha Mela, a spectacular Hindu sacred festival held every twelve years on the banks of the Ganges in India. The Kumbha Mela is the largest festive gathering of humanity on earth.
- Sacred journeys with Bruce Feiler. Episode 5, Kumbh Mela (streaming, Academic Video Online) Every twelve years, tens of millions of men, women and children gather on the flood plain of the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers in Allahabad, India, for the largest gathering of humanity for religious purposes on the planet, and host Bruce Feiler is there. Â This is the Kumbh Mela, the great Hindu festival where pilgrims come from across India, and around the world, to bathe in the water where two sacred rivers meet.
- India : pilgrims of the Ganges (streaming, Academic Video Online) A journey through the North of India along the basin of the sacred river for Hindus, the Ganges.
- Caste at birth (streaming, Academic Video Online) Few Westerners realize the grave situation of India s "untouchables." There are 150 million of them who live a segregated life. They cannot own land or get an education and are condemned to the most menial jobs, such as sweeping streets, cleaning toilets, or butchering animals. In the villages they are subject to abuse, sometimes killed for minor slights to the landowners. From birth, all alternatives are closed to them. While the government has tried to improve the condition of the untouchables, these attempts have been met by strong resistance. Upper caste Hindus profit from this source of cheap labor. In addition, the Hindu notion that the untouchable is impure is deeply ingrained. However, a few leaders have arisen from their ranks, who work for change.
- This is a music : reclaiming an untouchable drum (streaming, Academic Video Online) This ethnomusicological documentary is about the psychological and economic transformation of a group of Dalit [formerly called outcaste or untouchable] parai frame drummers from a village near Paramagudi,
- The JVC video anthology of world music and dance. Volume 12, South Asia II : India 2 (streaming, Academic Video Online) This is part of the 30-volume JVC Video Anthology of Music and Dance of the World India 2 - Tape 12
- Dust and ashes (streaming, Academic Video Online) Every 12 years in India, 15 million pilgrims gather together for the world's largest religious festival. The last one was in January 1989, at Allahabad on the confluence of the Ganges and the Yamuna rivers. This film joins the faithful - a millionaire pontiff and the festival organiser - for an intriguing glimpse of a unique event.
- Kataragama: a god for all seasons (streaming, Academic Video Online) In ever-increasing numbers Sinhalese of all religions (Muslims, Christians and Buddhists) are turning to Kataragama, an ancient Hindu God, at times of trouble and desperation. Once a year pilgrims make the journey to Kataragama's shrine in southeast Sri Lanka (Ceylon) to fulfil vows by performing acts of penance and worship in payment for a favour received.
- Eunuchs : India's Third Gender (streaming, Academic Video Online) This extraordinary film explores the twilight world of India's eunuchs who both exploit and bewail their ill-defined status within society. The eunuchs introduce a special world, where for them divinity and daily life alternate in the flash of an exquisitely made-up eye. A 3,600-strong ancient sect who claim to be descended from the gods live in relative luxury. Other Indian men explain why they too underwent painful castration.
- Awake : the life of Yogananda (streaming, Academic Video Online) An unconventional biography about the Hindu Swami who brought yoga and meditation to the West in the 1920s. Paramahansa Yogananda authored the spiritual classic "Autobiography of a Yogi," which has sold millions of copies worldwide and is a go - to book for seekers, philosophers and yoga enthusiasts today. By personalizing his own quest for enlightenment and sharing his struggles along the path, Yogananda made ancient Vedic teachings accessible to a modern audience, attracting many
- Oh My God!: What is Hinduism (streaming, Academic Video Online) Host Tevya begins his spiritual quest by investigating Hinduism, a faith with some 900 million followers worldwide. He attends the Durga Puja festival, an annual celebration for the Hindu goddess Durga with his teen guide Kritika. Tevya explores Little India searching for a present for the goddess and learns a little Kathak dancing with Kritika along the way!
- Dowry Law (streaming, Academic Video Online) Every six hours in India, a young woman is beaten to death, driven to commit suicide or burnt alive in a 'cooking accident' at home. Most of these deaths are the result of arguments over dowry cash. It can cost up to $100,000...
- Music and society. Island of temples (streaming, Academic Video Online) Filmed entirely in Bali - the famed Hindu island in the archipelago of Indonesia - this historical video shows the day-to-day life of the islanders, their folk songs, gamelan orchestras and dance dramas. The temple is the focal point of each village where the villagers gather for religious ceremonies as well as for music and dance. The film features stunning, rarely captured footage of two religious dance/dramas named Barong, and Ketchak, the legendary "monkey chant".
- The fire of Kali (streaming, Academic Video Online) In the last two years, as one of the nastiest and under-reported wars has raged in Sri Lanka, nearly 50,000 young Tamil Hindus have simply disappeared. Now the families of these men are turning back to their ancient traditions in an attempt to locate their lost loved ones. Everyman accompanies Shanti, who is determined to find her 'lost' brother. She visits the Oracle of the Goddess Kali and is prepared to 'walk the fire' in the hope that Kali will fulfil her part of the bargain.
- Religion in Hindu India (dvd) This program takes a journey with two sadhus as they visit holy locales, witness religious rites, and, in general, immerse themselves in Hindu culture as it exists in the religion's motherland, India. The Festival of Shivaratri in Benares and the Festival of Holi in Mathura are featured, along with devotional and secular activities in Allahabad that follow the official conclusion of the Khumbh Mela.
- Altar of Fire (dvd) This film, by Robert Gardner and J.F. Staal, records a twelve-day ritual performed by Mambudiri Brahmins in Kerala, India, in April, 1975 - possibly the last performance of the Agnicayana, a Vedic ritual of sacrifice dating back three thousand years and probably the oldest surviving human ritual.
- Singing Pictures (dvd) SINGING PICTURES follows the daily lives of woman from the Naya Village near Calcutta, India, who have formed a scroll painters' collaborative. The camera shows them as they paint, sing, cook, tend to their children and meet with the cooperative. They discuss the problems and rewards of practicing their art, and speak freely about the social, religious, and political changes in the village and the world beyond
