LibGuides: Religion: Videos &amp; Images

You can use Library Search | Ketu to search for multimedia including images, photographs, video, audio and musical recordings Use the Refine My Results: Type limiter to narrow your search results to multimedia content types e.g Audio Visual You must have your student ID with you to borrow DVDs/Videos/CDs

Honorable Mention for RELS 244/344

The 1999 Cinematic Masterpiece 'The Mummy' starring Brendon Fraser and Rachel Weisz
The Mummy is a rousing, suspenseful and horrifying epic about an expedition of treasure-seeking explorers in the Sahara Desert in 1925. Stumbling upon an ancient tomb, the hunters unwittingly set loose a 3,000-year-old legacy of terror, which is embodied in the vengeful reincarnation of an Egyptian priest who had been sentenced to an eternity as one of the living dead.
Please note the Library has this on Video Cassette ONLY.
It is currently available for streaming on Netflix.

Audio Visual Databases

eTV
Provides real-time resources through recorded TV programmes, live streams and on demand videos. First-time users must register.
Kanopy
A streaming service that provides access to video content sourced from leading suppliers.
Alexander Street (Religion)
This multidisciplinary database features curated, discipline-focused, primary-source collections, websites, and streaming media for learning and research. This link takes you straight to the Religion collection.

Kanopy Great Courses

'Great Courses' by Kanopy are series of lectures from renowned professors and institutions. They give excellent overviews of a huge number to topics. The full list can be found here, and below are some religion specific highlights:

Sacred Texts of the World (36 episodes)
Throughout history, religious expression has been an essential human activity, influencing the development of civilizations. Humanity’s religions are grounded in their sacred texts - foundational writings that crystallize the principles and vision of the faiths, forming the basis of belief and action. These richly informative lectures reveal a global legacy of faith, thought, and spirituality.
The Pagan World: Ancient Religions Before Christianity (24 episodes)
Meet the fascinating, ancient polytheistic peoples of the Mediterranean and beyond, their gods and goddesses, and their public and private worship practices, as you come to better understand the foundational role religion played in their daily lives. This series makes a wonderful lens through which to gain a deeper knowledge of their world.
The Holy Land Revealed (36 episodes)
With a rich history stretching back over 3,000 years, the Holy Land is sacred for three major faiths and the setting for defining events in religious history. Historians have shed intriguing new light on our understanding of this area—and its powerful role in religious history. Comb through these remains for yourself and travel deep beneath the pages of the Bible.
Jesus and his Jewish Influences (24 episodes)
For anyone interested in understanding the profound effect Jesus had on the world, it’s important to realize that his actions and teachings didn’t emerge from a vacuum. Rather, they were the product of a fascinating dialogue with—and reaction to—the traditions, cultures, and historical developments of ancient Jewish beliefs. In fact, early Judaism and Jesus are two subjects so inextricably linked that one cannot arrive at a true understanding of Jesus without understanding the time in which he lived and taught.
A History of India (36 episodes)
Over 5,000 years, India has been home to a rich tapestry of cultures, and the lands east of the Indus River have long been a hub for trade and cultural exchange. Today the subcontinent contains 20% of the world’s population and is an economic powerhouse. Go inside this thrilling story with A History of India, a breathtaking survey of South Asia from its earliest societies through the challenges of the 21st century.
Death, Dying, and the Afterlife (24 episodes)
Death serves as the horizon against which our lives unfold and shapes the choices we make about how to live. In fact, the knowledge of mortality has inspired much of human activity—religion, philosophy, music and visual arts, even scientific endeavors and monumental architecture have all been driven by our understanding of death. Whether viewed as a transition to paradise or punishment, an ultimate separation or ecstatic joining, the end of existence or the beginning of a new way of being, many cultures have learned to see death as a window into the true meaning of life. The subject, therefore, deserves our close consideration.

For RELS102: Kūmāré

Kūmāré

Click on picture or follow this link for access.
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Kūmāré is an enlightened guru from the East who builds a following of disciples in the West. But Kūmāré is not real. He is an American filmmaker named Vikram Gandhi, who has transformed himself into Kūmāré as the centrepiece of a social experiment designed to explore and test one of the world's most sacred taboos.
Concealing his true identity from all he meets, Kumaré forges profound, spiritual connections with real people from all walks of life. At the same time, in the absurdity of living as an entirely different person, Vikram the filmmaker is forced to confront difficult questions about his own identity. At the height of his popularity he reveals his greatest teaching: his true self. A playful yet genuine and insightful look at belief and spirituality, the film crosses a line few have dared to cross, that from illusion comes truth.

Documentaries that may be of interest:

There are many more to discover on the Kanopy database!

Til Kingdom Come: Ad Sof HaOlam
Pastors encourage an impoverished Kentucky community, “The forgotten people of America”, to donate to Israel in anticipation of Jesus's impending return. The film exposes the controversial bond between Evangelicals and Jews, in a story of faith, power and money, revealing how Trump’s America was led by an End-Times apocalyptic countdown.
Doing Jewish: A Story from Ghana
A tiny community in rural Ghana recently discovered that the religion they have been practicing for centuries is Judaism. Filmmaker Gabrielle Zilkha explores their story from isolation to global connection and the challenges and rewards they face along the way.
Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think
The film explores the world's first major opinion poll, conducted by the Gallup organization. It asked Muslims from Indonesia to South Asia, to the Middle East, as well as minority communities in the US and Europe, what they thought about issues such as Gender Equality, Terrorism, and Democracy. It presented by Islamic scholars and the Gallup members themselves who give context and try to provide explanations for the results.
Power and Piety
BAFTA Award-winning reporter Mobeen Azhar travels across the world to investigate the destructive links between religion and conflict. He digs deep into Islamic extremism in his native countries of the UK and Pakistan, right-wing Christianity in the USA, Indonesia’s secular state, Hindu Nationalism in India, and Myanmar’s hardline Buddhists.
A Kali Temple Inside Out
Religious boundaries in India are not necessarily as sharp and antagonistic as news media lead us to believe. This film portrays everyday life inside and around a Kali temple in the city of Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh (India). Its central characters are a priest and three devotees, who show why this temple is so important to them. The film follows these characters through their daily routines at home, at the temple, and on their occasional visits to the holy places of other non-Hindu religious traditions. The film offers a counterpoint to assumptions about religious differences and shows a more complex relationship informed by mutual friendship and shared religious aspirations. As the priest says at the end of the film , “God is one, the religions are made by humans”.
Honor Diaries
Nine leading women's rights advocates fight back against gender-based honor violence. Notions of shame and honor are challenged, and a profound dialogue emerges in their efforts to create change.
The Lover and The Beloved: A Journey into Tantra
A documentary feature film about one man's journey across northern India and his search for enlightenment. Rajive McMullen, a history teacher suffering from a debilitating illness, makes the painful journey into the heart of Tantra, searching for meaning in holy shrines, coming close to death in cremation grounds and enjoying the chaos of the Aghori seekers.

This film offers dramatic insight into Tantrik ideas about the life cycle, particularly death, and contributes much to our understanding of how we seek knowledge and how we die. THE LOVER AND THE BELOVED also represents a realistic attempt to understand both the practice and illusive theory behind Indian Tantrism, and is intended to challenge widespread Western misinterpretations of this system of thought. Along the way we visit Kamakhya Devi in Assam and Tarapith in West Bengal, two of the most important centres of Tantrik Hinduism.
Jonestown: The Life & Death of the Peoples Temple
This New York Times Critic's Pick tells the story of the people who followed cult leader Jim Jones to the remote jungles of Guyana, South America, in a misbegotten quest to build an ideal society.
On the surface, Jim Jones and the multi-racial Peoples Temple congregation espoused the values of a model society. But upon closer examination, something was amiss. In the summer of 1977, with the publication of an expose in New West magazine, the truth about Peoples Temple was exposed. Defectors and family members gave accounts of physical, sexual and drug abuse, financial corruption, and members being held against their will. On November 18, 1978, over 900 members of Peoples Temple died in the largest mass suicide/murder in history.
Hail Satan?
Chronicling the extraordinary rise of one of the most colorful and controversial religious movements in American history, HAIL SATAN? is an inspiring and entertaining new feature documentary from acclaimed director Penny Lane (Nuts!, Our Nixon). When media-savvy members of the Satanic Temple organise a series of public actions designed to advocate for religious freedom and challenge corrupt authority, they prove that you can speak the truth in some truly profound ways. As charming and funny as it is thought-provoking, HAIL SATAN? offers a timely look at a group of often misunderstood outsiders whose unwavering commitment to social and political justice has empowered thousands of people around the world.
Life on the Ganges: Celebrating Dev Diwali on the Ganges River
Varanasi, India is one of the holiest cities, located in the northeastern part of the country. People from all over India, even the world, travel to Varanasi to bathe in the Ganges River to wash away their sins and purify their souls.

Along the river embankment are boatmen who row tourists up and down the Ganges during Dev Diwali, a festival celebrated 15 days after the national holiday of Diwali. The boat rides are part of the spiritual experience on this holy day, and the film introduces the audience to the river, this auspicious event, and one particular boatman, whose main source of strength and survival comes from the Ganges.

Screencast lectures by Dr. Dale Tuggy, for his INDS 120 World Religions - a Fredonia (State College of New York) course surveying the traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and introducing students to the terms and classic theories of Religious Studies.

Podcasts

The Māhabhārata podcast
The Mahabharata Podcast is hosted by Prof. Arti Dhand of the Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto.

Multimedia Databases

Looking for an image, sound file, chart etc? Then try one of the following:

Databases specialising in images:

ARTstor Digital Library This link opens in a new window
The current version of ARTstor supports the following browsers: IE 7.0+ ; Firefox 3.0+; Safari 3.0+. A nonprofit digital library of more than one million images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and social sciences with a suite of software tools to view, present, and manage images for research and pedagogical purposes.
The following system configurations are recommended for the optimal use of the ARTstor Digital Library: A high-speed internet connection; Java version 1.3 or later installed on your browser (Mac users accessing ARTstor through Innovative Proxy must have Java version 1.5 or later); Flash Player version 6.0 or later installed; Pop-up blockers are either disabled or configured to allow pop-up windows from www.artstor.org; Cookies are enabled in your browser; Monitor resolution is set at 1280 x 1024 pixels or higher; Screen colours are set to True Colour (32 bit) or better.
Hocken Snapshop This link opens in a new window
A small sample of the photographs of New Zealand people and places held at Hocken Collections. You can print or download any of these images for personal and research use.

Databases with a variety of content types e.g. videos, photographs, sound files:

Anthropology (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
Anthropology brings together a wide range of ethnographic documentaries, indigenous media, field notes, study guides and raw footage, covering human behaviour the world over. Essential for study in the areas of politics, economics, history, psychology, environmental studies, religion, area studies, linguistics, and geography, the database will contain more than 1,800 films at completion.
DigitalNZ This link opens in a new window
Aims to make New Zealand digital content easy to find, share and use. This includes content from government departments, publicly funded organisations, the private sector, and community groups.

Online Gallery: Sacred
Videos, podcasts, and interactive features to complement the British Library's online gallery of sacred texts
Vatican Library Digitalisation Project
The Vatican Library was founded in 1451 AD and holds over 80,000 manuscripts, prints, drawings, plates and incunabula (books printed prior to 1500 AD) written throughout history by people of different faiths from across the world.

A Middle Eastern Odyssey

This online exhibition was curated by the University of Otago's Special Collections staff. The catalyst for this exhibition was the inventory of Middle Eastern and Islamic language materials compiled recently by Dr Majid Daneshgar, former lecturer at Theology and Religion at the University of Otago, now University of Freiburg, Germany. On display are a number of Arabic, Urdu, Persian, and Turkish language books and manuscripts. These books & manuscripts can be seen in person by appointment at Special Collections in the Central Library.