Guides: Anthropology: Videos

Online Video Collections

Browse or search within the following collections. The films in these collections are also searchable in the Library catalog. To search the library catalog for streaming films by keyword, construct a search with your keywords + the phrase "and online media" --

"culture and united states and online media"

Some suggested search terms:

anthropology
ethnography
social life and customs
culture
families

Ethnographic video online
Ethnographic Video Online Resource Type: Reference Title/Alternate Title: Ethnographic Video Online Subjects Covered: Anthropology, Ethnography, Social psychology Contents: Ethnographic Video Online provides a largest, comprehensive resource for the study of human culture and behavior. The collection covers every region of the world and features the work of many of the most influential documentary filmmakers of the 20th century, including interviews, previously unreleased raw footage, field notes, study guides, and more. This current release includes 815 videos totaling roughly 856 hours.
Kanopy
Titles not yet licensed can be requested by searching the Kanopy platform and filling out the form requesting access to the title that you need. Media Library staff will receive and process these requests as quickly as possible. The form requires your name, email address, and a brief explanation for your request. If you are selecting a film for a specific course please include when you will be teaching the course and whether or not the movie you need will continue to be assigned in future semesters. Most licenses on Kanopy expire after one year so future access will be contingent upon extending or renewing licenses.
Docuseek2
Docuseek 2 provides access to more than 400 streaming documentary films on a wide range of social science and humanities topics, with a strong focus on social issues, environmental studies and political science.
Academic video online
Academic Video Online contains smaller collections, including: Ethnographic Video Online, Human Rights Studies Online, PBS Video Collection, Counseling and Therapy in Video, and more.

DVDs and streaming videos in the UNT Libraries collection

The UNT Libraries provide DVD and streaming videos for the UNT community.

DVDs - use the box on the left to search for DVDs in the UNT Library Catalog
Videos on Demand (VOD) - these are streaming videos that you can watch online. Browse or search the entire Video on Demand Collection.
The Ethnographic Video Online collection contans a wide range of streaming videos in the areas of politics, economics, history, psychology, environmental studies, religion, area studies, linguistics, and geography. It currently contains more than 1,100 videos totally roughly 744 hours. When the collection is finished it will contain over 1,800 documentaries.
The Docuseek2 collection contains streaming documentary films on a wide range of social science and humanities topics. These films can be easily embedded into Blackboard:

Bibliography of Selected Videos

Indigenous African Peoples
Africa -- General Films and Documentaries
Includes Art, Music Dance, Diaspora, Religion and Mythology, Women's Issues, Fictional Interpretations.
Ethnic Studies
Ethnoecology

The list below is a selected bibliography of DVDs and VODs (Videos on Demand) from the UNT Libraries. The document contains links that take you directly to the UNT Library Catalog where you can read more about a video's content.

Anthropology films

Herskovits at the heart of blackness by directed and produced by Lllewellyn M. Smith. Kanopy Streaming
Traces the career of Melville J. Herskovits, the pioneering American anthropologist of African Studies and controversial intellectual who established the first African Studies Center at an American university. Rarely seen archival footage, provocative animation, and unique photo montage re-enactments propel the story and interviews from leading scholars of race and culture forward.

The day we learned to think: the evolution of language and cognition by John Shrapnel, Dan Clifton, Matthew Barrett, and others
Call Number: DVD 10200R
Publication Date: 2008
Was there a 'big bang' in human language and cognitive development, or did speech and abstract thought evolve slowly-perhaps across 200,000 years or so? Surveying prehistoric burial sites and other archaeological finds this program attempts to locate the junction of creativity and communication at which human intelligence was born". -- Container.
Serpent and the sun; tales of an Aztec apprentice
Call Number: DVD 11106
Publication Date: 2008
This riveting "hybrid documentary" explores the roots of an Aztec medicine man and his apprentice while trekking through the mountains of rural Mexico.