Related Guides
Selected Webcasts
Library of Congress Webcasts
- And Wheat Completed the Cycle: Flour Mills, Social Memory, and Industrial Culture in Sonora, Mexico "The abandoned flour mills throughout the region," said a Mexican researcher interviewed during fieldwork in northern Mexico, "are the equivalent for Sonorans of the pyramids in Central Mexico." In this talk about her research as a Fulbright Fellow in Sonora, Mexico for the last nine months, folklorist and anthropologist Maribel Alvarez explores the role of wheat - a grain introduced by the Spanish to Mexico in the 16th century - as a central element in the construction of a distinct regional identity that prides itself on a simultaneous, and often contradictory, association with tradition AND modernity.
- La Quinceanera: A Coming of Age Ritual in Latino Communities The Quinceanera, the traditional coming-of-age celebration for Latinas, is an an elegant party on the girl's 15th birthday, highlighting God, family, friends, music, food and dance. Many questions emerge as one looks at this fascinating and complex rite of passage: what are its essential elements? What are its origins in indigenous Mexican tradition and in European tradition? What are the components that define it as a coming of age ritual? How does the performance of the feminine play out in the celebration? How do "border theory" and "mestizaje theory" apply to this particular event? In answering these and the more critical question--why would a family spend thousands of dollars to celebrate a birthday?--we can gain insight into the cultural practices of Latino communities.
Find Films & Sound Recordings
- 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.
- 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 Sound Archives Online This link opens in a new window Ethnographic 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.
- 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.
- Penn Museum Anthropological and Archaeological Films (University of Pennsylvania) In its 120-year history, the University of Pennsylvania Museum has collected nearly one million objects, many obtained directly through its own field excavations or anthropological research. This collection on the Internet Archive represents a portion of the motion picture film collection housed at the Museum.
Featured Film
- Preparations of traditional food for Santa Rosa festival (streaming, Academic Video Online) Shots of some of the traditional utensils used by the Caribs in food preparation; (3:21) Crushing sugar canes for juice; (9:20) Food preparation, clay fireside; (12:00) Cassava bread; (13:00) Trying on woven hat; (14:18) Chataigne in a calabash; (15:52) Callaloo in a pot. Location: Arima, Trinidad & Tobago.
