Literature (Documentaries)

Produced by the Teaching Company.
30-minute lectures; released 2005.
Professor Fears presents his choices from some of the most essential writings in history, ranging in time from the 3rd millennium B.C. to the 20th century, and in locale from Mesopotamia and China to Europe and America.

Produced by the Eternal Word Television Network.
30-minute programs.
Fr. C. John McCloskey and guest scholars explore the lives and works of the great Catholic authors.

Directed by Gail Pellett.
30 minutes; released 1988.
Bill Moyers talks to Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe (Things Fall Apart) about African and Western politics and culture.

Produced by the Teaching Company.
30-minute lectures; released 1998.
Professor Weinstein reveals the vitality in each work he discusses, finding in every one the "uncanny" quality that marks a masterpiece of the American canon. He shows you that the classics of American literature are vibrant, living forces, and allows you to gain an extraordinary familiarity with each of these authors within a manageable amount of time.

Directed by Catherine Tatge.
30 minutes; released 1988.
Nobel Prize-winning poet Derek Walcott discusses his work with journalist Bill Moyers.

Produced by the Teaching Company.
30-minute lectures; released 2006.
Drawing on an array of influences from Europe and the non-Western world, the movement of Transcendentalism offered uniquely American perspectives of thought: an emphasis on the divine in nature, on the value of the individual and intuition, and on belief in a spirituality that might "transcend" one's own sensory experience to provide a more useful guide for daily living than is possible from empirical and logical reasoning.

Produced by the Teaching Company.
30-minute lectures; released 2006.
By placing more than two centuries of great English novelists in the context of British history, Professor Spurgin shows how their lives intersected with the creation of their art.

Directed by Damian Pettigrew.
105 minutes; released 2002.
Portrait of Fellini with contribution by Italo Calvino, Donald Sutherland and others.

Produced by the Teaching Company.
30-minute lectures; released 2004.
From the Book of Job and Beowulf to Pride and Prejudice and As I Lay Dying, these 84 lectures provide an overview of some of Western literature's greatest offerings. Along the way we examine the traditional rationale for studying literature and explore its ability to reveal the most profound beliefs and illusions of a culture.

Produced by Kultur International Films.
63 minutes; released 2003.
This film combines biographies of some of Ireland's greatest writers--such as W.B. Yeats, Oscar Wilde and James Joyce--with a tour of the locations that inspired them.

Directed by Betsy McCarthy.
60 minutes; released 1988.
On this programme, scientist and author Isaac Asimov discusses evolution and the correlation between science and religion. He also addresses the future of education, why we all must think similarly if we want to survive, and why we cannot wait for the start of the next century. First broadcast on the television show, A World of Ideas with Bill Moyers.

Directed by Julian Birkett.
48 minutes; released 1998.
The story of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, English writer, poet, philologist and author of many stories, including The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Produced by the Teaching Company.
30-minute lectures; released 2001.
This course is an excellent introductory guide to the many layers of James Joyce's landmark novel Ulysses. After considering the controversies it provoked when it first appeared and why it is considered a major contribution to 20th-century literature, the lectures show how Joyce's novel reconstructs the adventures of Ulysses, the protagonist of Homer's Odyssey.

Directed by Jerry Aronson.
84 minutes; released 1994.
Famous as a poet, Allen Ginsberg was also a visionary, a spiritual seeker, a human rights champion, a political activist, and a teacher. This portrait of one of America's greatest poets includes comprehensive footage of Ginsberg, as well as interviews with friends, family, and contemporaries.

Produced by the Teaching Company.
30-minute lectures; released 2002.
Professor Stephen Railton of the University of Virginia explores the private persona behind the public figure through literary analysis of some of his Mark Twain's most representative works.

Directed by Lisa Kors.
60 minutes; released 2001.
Finds parallels between Tolkien's imaginary Middle-earth and our own world.

Directed by Nigel Wattis.
59 minutes; released 1987.
This programme re-creates one day in London as the 19th-Century Italian author Luigi Pirandello watches his plays and, away from the footlights, confronts the paradoxical nature of his life. Narrated by Julian Mitchell. From the series Ten great writers of the modern world.

Produced by the Teaching Company.
30-minute lectures; released 2008.
This course takes you on an exciting ride through an itinerary that samples 23 of the world's greatest short stories. The form of the genre, as well as the various ways in which it has evolved, is highlighted along the way with a display of the essential nuts and bolts of storytelling-- plot, character, setting, style, point of view, and theme.

Produced by the Eternal Word Television Network.
30-minute episodes; released 2005.
Father John Wauck explains how history forges literature, and literature then forges the identity of nations and communities by creating a shared language of images and story.

Directed by Sean Buckley.
63 minutes; released 2001.
Tolkien biographer Michael Coren offers an introduction to the novels and life of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Produced by the Teaching Company.
30-minute lectures; released 2006.
Representing Justice: Stories of Law and Literature is a provocative examination of the rhetorical and philosophical connections that link these two disciplines.

Produced by the Teaching Company.
45-minute lectures; released 1995.
For almost 400 years, Shakespeare's work has been the standard against which all writers have been judged. This course acknowledges that understanding Shakespeare can be difficult because his plays were written 400 years ago.

Produced by the Teaching Company.
30-minute lectures; released 2004.
Dr. John McWhorter, one of America's leading linguists, is your guide on an in-depth tour of the development of human language, showing how a single tongue spoken 150,000 years ago evolved into the estimated 6,000 languages used around the world today.

Directed by Harry Rasky.
80 minutes; released 1973.
A documentary about the work of playwright Tennessee Williams. Includes Williams reading from his own works and dramatizations by distinguished actors.

Produced by Public Affairs Television.
52 minutes; released 2004.
Bill Moyers interviews Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison.

Produced by the Teaching Company.
30-minute lectures; released 1995.
This course examines the three great forms of literary expression, drama, poetry, and narrative, in a chronological introduction to the major texts of Western culture, from antiquity onward.

Produced by the Teaching Company.
30-minute lectures; released 1999.
This course introduces the plays of Shakespeare and explores what makes Shakespeare the leading playwright in Western civilization.

Directed by Malcolm Hossick.
30 minutes; released 2005.
A biography of Shakespeare which draws extensively on archival materials.