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The Self-Access Centre - English - TV Documentaries - Humanities

Please note that documentaries are available to view on the computers in the university. If you see you can view the film online. This material is not available on computers that are outside of the university.

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	Title	Author	Subcategory	Subtitles	Length	Rating
Poet and author Owen Sheers presents a series in which he explores great works of poetry set in the British landscape. Louis MacNeice was one of the big guns of British poetry in the 1930s and 40s but is less well known today. Sheers takes a stroll into one of his finest poems, called simply Woods. 1	A Poet's Guide to Britain : Louis MacNeice	Rupert Edwards	Humanities	English	30 mins	Like (0 likes)
Poet and author Owen Sheers presents a series in which he explores great works of poetry set in the British landscape. What drove Matthew Arnold to write his bleak but tremendous poem Dover Beach. 2	A Poet's Guide to Britain : Matthew Arnold	Rupert Edwards	Humanities	English	30 mins	Like (0 likes)
Poet and author Owen Sheers presents a series in which he explores six great works of poetry set in the British landscape.George Mackay Brown, who died in 1996, was the great poetic voice of the Orkneys and one of the foremost Scottish poets of the 20th century. 3	A Poet's Guide to Britain : George Mackay Brown	Rupert Edwards	Humanities	English	30 mins	Like (0 likes)
Poet and author Owen Sheers presents a series in which he explores six great works of poetry set in the British landscape.Roberts was brought up in a wealthy family in Argentina but married a writer from Carmarthenshire in 1939 at the outbreak of war and spent the next nine years living in poverty in a Welsh-speaking village. 4	A Poet's Guide to Britain : Lynette Roberts	Rupert Edwards	Humanities	English	30 mins	Like (0 likes)
Poet and author Owen Sheers presents a series in which he explores great works of poetry set in the British landscape.Sylvia Plath is one of the most popular and influential poets of recent history but her poetry is often overshadowed by her life. 5	A Poet's Guide to Britain : Sylvia Plath	Rupert Edwards	Humanities	English	30 mins	Like (0 likes)
Just how did the Devil get inside our heads? And who put him there? For Halloween, award-winning comedy writer and performer Andy Hamilton (creator and star of Radio 4's acclaimed infernal comedy Old Harry's Game) explores just who the devil Satan is, where he comes from and what he has been up to all this time. 6	Andy Hamilton's Search for Satan	BBC 4	Humanities		60 mins	Like (0 likes)
A programme exploring the work of crime writer James Ellroy, whose credits include LA Confidential, The Black Dahlia and My Dark Places, the latter a harrowing memoir of his own mother's murder. 7	Arena - James Ellroy's Feast of Death	BBC 2	Humanities	English	95 mins	Like (0 likes)
Tony Palmer's film, thought lost for almost 40 years, about Leonard Cohen's 1972 European tour, has now been pieced together from almost 3,000 fragments and restored to its former glory. A unique record of a major poet and singer/songwriter at the height of his powers. 8	Bird on a Wire	BBC 4	Humanities	English	105 mins	Like (0 likes)
The unlikely story of how, between 1929 and 1945, a group of tweed-wearing radicals and pin-striped bureaucrats created the most influential movement in the history of British film. They were the British Documentary Movement and they gave Britons a taste for watching films about real life. 9	Britain Through A Lens: The Documentary Film Mob	BBC	Humanities	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
David Attenborough asks three key questions: how and why did Darwin come up with his theory of evolution? Why do we think he was right? And why is it more important now than ever before? 10	Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life	David Attenborough	Humanities	English	50 mins	Like (0 likes)
Leading British writer Howard Jacobson, a Jew himself, examines the origins and consequences of Christian belief. He argues that although Christianity originated in devout Judaism, for Jews it has been, for the most part, a calamity. 11	Christianity: A History. Episode 1.Jesus the Jew	Novelist Howard Jacobson	Humanities		53 mins	Like (0 likes)
Acclaimed war correspondent Rageh Omaar examines the effect the Crusades have on the world today. In the West, the Crusades are a chapter of Christian history that has little impact on our everyday lives, but in the Middle East many believe that the Crusades are happening again. 12	Christianity: A History. Eposode 4. Crusades	Rageh Omaar	Humanities		43 mins	Like (0 likes)
There are some who believe that Darwin's theory of evolution has weakened religion, fuelled in part by Richard Dawkins' publishing phenomenon The God Delusion. Conor Cunningham argues that nothing could be further from the truth. 13	Did Darwin Kill God?	BBC	Humanities	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
A five-part series in which Stephen Fry explores language, coming to understand how we learn it, write it and sometimes lose it, and why it defines us. 14	Fry's Planet Word - Babel	BBC 2	Humanities	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
What is it that defines us? Stephen argues that above all, it is the way we speak. Be it a national language, a regional dialect or even class variation - we interpret and define ourselves through our language. 15	Fry's Planet Word - Identity	BBC 2	Humanities	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
This programme looks at the ways language is used and abused. While not everyone approves of 'bad' language, Stephen learns that swearing plays an important part in human communication the world over. 16	Fry's Planet Word - Uses and Abuses	BBC 2	Humanities	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
In this fascinating series, Nick Crane investigates eight epic and challenging journeys, following in the footsteps of our greatest indigenous explorers.In the 1930s and 40s, HV Morton undertook the first tour of Scotland in a motor car, creating a new type of travel writing. 17	Great British Journeys	Michael Waterhouse	Humanities		58 mins	Like (0 likes)
Series which looks at important thinkers through the TV and radio broadcasts they made for the BBC. Includes rare and never-seen archive of Freud, Jung and Bertrand Russell. 18	Great Thinkers: In Their Own Words - 01 - Human, All Too Human	BBC 4	Humanities	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
The heart is the most symbolic organ of the human body. Throughout history it has been seen as the site of our emotions, the very centre of our being. But modern medicine has come to see the heart as just a pump; a brilliant pump, but nothing more. And we see ourselves as ruled by our heads and not our hearts. 19	Heart vs Mind: What makes us Human ?	David Malone	Humanities		60 mins	Like (0 likes)
Whether it’s English, Spanish, Chinese, or Urdu, babies and young children are able to pick up their native language with remarkable ease; no one language seems any more difficult than any other. Yet few children who are taught a language in school have anything to show for it when they grow up. Why is learning a second or third language so difficult? 20	Horizon - A child's guide to Languages	BBC	Humanities		48 mins	Like (0 likes)
What makes us good or evil? It's a simple but deeply unsettling question. One that scientists are now starting to answer. 21	Horizon - Are You Good or Evil ?	BBC 2	Humanities	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
You might think that your memory is there to help you remember facts, such as birthdays or shopping lists. If so, you would be very wrong. The ability to travel back in time in your mind is, perhaps, your most remarkable ability, and develops over your lifespan. 22	Horizon - How does your memory work?	BBC	Humanities		50 mins	Like (0 likes)
We are bad at making decisions. According to science, our decisions are based on oversimplification, laziness and prejudice. And that's assuming that we haven't already been hijacked by our surroundings or led astray by our subconscious! Featuring exclusive footage of experiments that show how our choices can be confounded by temperature, warped by post-rationalisation and even manipulated by the future, Horizon presents a guide to better decision making, and introduces you to Mathematician Garth Sundem, who is convinced that conclusions can best be reached using simple maths and a pencil! 23	Horizon - How to Make Better Decisions	BBC	Humanities		50 mins	Like (0 likes)
When disaster strikes who lives and who dies is not purely a matter of luck. In every disaster, from those people face once in a lifetime, to those they face every day, there are things that can be done to increase the chances of getting out alive. 24	Horizon - How to Survive a Disaster		Humanities	English	50 mins	Like (0 likes)
Science series. People like to think they are in control of their lives - of what they feel and think. But scientists are now discovering this is often simply an illusion. 25	Horizon - Out of Control ?	BBC 2	Humanities		60 mins	Like (0 likes)
Marcus Du Sautoy wants to find out how close we are to creating machines that can think like us: robots or computers that have artificial intelligence. 26	Horizon - The Hunt for AI	BBC	Humanities		60 mins	Like (0 likes)
With the help of a hammer-wielding scientist, Jennifer Aniston and a general anaesthetic, Professor Marcus du Sautoy goes in search of answers to one of science's greatest mysteries: how do we know who we are? 27	Horizon - The Secret You	BBC 1	Humanities	English	58 mins	Like (0 likes)
What is wrong with nudity? Why are people embarrassed about their bodies? How and why did they get the way they are? 28	Horizon - What's the Problem with Nudity?	BBC	Humanities	English	50 mins	Like (0 likes)
The world is affected by an obesity epidemic, but why is it that not everyone is succumbing? Medical science has been obsessed with this subject and is coming up with some unexpected answers. As it turns out, it is not all about exercise and diet. At the centre of this programme is a controversial overeating experiment that aims to identify exactly what it is about some people that makes it hard for them to bulk up. 29	Horizon - Why Are Thin People Not Fat	BBC	Humanities		59 mins	Like (0 likes)
Horizon uncovers the secret world of our dreams. In a series of cutting-edge experiments and personal stories, we go in search of the science behind this most enduring mystery and ask: where do dreams come from? Do they have meaning? And ultimately, why do we dream? 30	Horizon - Why Do We Dream?	BBC	Humanities	English	50 mins	Like (0 likes)
Talking is something that is unique to humans, yet it still remains a mystery. Horizon meets the scientists beginning to unlock the secrets of speech - including a father who is filming every second of his son's first three years in order to discover how we learn to talk, the autistic savant who can speak more than 20 languages, and the first scientist to identify a gene that makes speech possible. 31	Horizon - Why Do We Talk?	BBC 2	Humanities	English	58 mins	Like (0 likes)
The story of how the Arab world erupted in revolution, as a new generation used the internet and social media to try to overthrow their hated leaders. 32	How Facebook Changed the World: The Arab Spring Part 01	BBC 2	Humanities	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
In the last of this two part series, Mishal Husain meets those who spread the revolt to Libya and Bahrain, and those who are still fighting the Syrian regime. 33	How Facebook Changed the World: The Arab Spring Part 02	BBC 2	Humanities	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
Julien Temple's epic time-travelling voyage to the heart of his hometown. From musicians, writers and artists to dangerous thinkers, political radicals and above all ordinary people, this is the story of London's immigrants, its bohemians and how together they changed the city forever. 34	London - The Modern Babylon	Julian Temple	Humanities		125 mins	Like (0 likes)
Professor Jim Al-Khalili investigates one of the most important concepts in the world today - information. He discovers how we harnessed the power of symbols, everything from the first alphabet to the electric telegraph through to the modern digital age. 35	Order and Disorder: Part 02 - Information	BBC	Humanities		60 mins	Like (0 likes)
Frank Skinner is one of Britain's most controversial comedians but even he felt the comments broadcast last year by Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand on BBC Radio went too far. As he experiments with reducing the expletive count in his own stand-up show, Frank sets out to discover if the Ross-Brand storm really was a watershed in broadcasting's debate about bad language and offence. 36	Panorama - Have I Got Bad Language For You?	BBC	Humanities		28 mins	Like (0 likes)
Margo MacDonald, the firebrand, independent politician, is one of Scotland's most popular public figures. But she also has Parkinson's Disease and, earlier this year, she spoke openly of her desire to choose the moment of her death. Now, in this deeply personal film, she uncovers the truth about assisted dying, meeting those with illnesses like hers who are desperate to die, and exploring how British law could be changed to allow them to choose when they can. 37	Panorama - I'll Die When I Choose	BBC	Humanities		30 mins	Like (0 likes)
Jeremy Vine reveals the problem of sexual bullying in our schools and hears from experts, parents and teachers - but most importantly from the kids themselves - on what we can do to tackle it. 38	Panorama - Kids Behaving Badly	BBC	Humanities		28 mins	Like (0 likes)
Bafta-winning director Morgan Matthews's landmark film exploring the impact of teenage killings on families and communities across Britain, an emotional journey that chronicles every teenager who died as a result of violence in 2009 in the UK. 39	Scenes from a Teenage Killing	BBC	Humanities	English	120 mins	Like (0 likes)
Professor Hawking considers one of the most important mysteries facing humankind: the possibility of intelligent alien life. 40	Stephen Hawking's Universe Episode 01	Channel 4	Humanities	English	43 mins	Like (0 likes)
Documentary which goes inside the secretive Traveller world - a world of long and bitter memories. Filmed over twelve years, the film chronicles a history of violent feuding between rival families, using remarkable access to document the bare-fist fights between the Quinn McDonaghs and the Joyce clans, who, though cousins, have clashed for generations. Vivid, violent and funny, the film explores the need for revenge and the pressure to fight for the honour of your family name. 41	Storyville - Knuckle: Bare Fist Fighting	Ian Palmer	Humanities		90 mins	Like (0 likes)
George Carey's film shows how the Russian space programme was kick-started by a mystic who taught that science would make us immortal, and carried forward by a scientist who believed that we should evolve into super-humans who could leave our overcrowded planet to colonise the universe. Stranger still, Carey shows how those ideas have survived Communism and adapted themselves to the science of the modern world. 42	Storyville: Knocking On Heaven's Door	BBC 4	Humanities	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
Dallas Campbell delves into the Horizon archive to discover how our understanding of intelligence has transformed over the last century. From early caveman thinkers to computers doing the thinking for us, he discovers the best ways of testing how clever we are - and enhancing it. 43	What Makes Us Clever? A Horizon Guide to Intelligence	BBC 4	Humanities	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)

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