“New Videos Monthly” is a new series that gathers in one place online videos recently made available on the Library’s website of public programs pertaining to the Library’s international collections. A post will be published every month and videos will be listed under each of the four area studies divisions respectively. To kick off the series, following are the videos released by the Library from January to April 2017.
Click on each division here to access the entire webcast archives of each division: African and Middle Eastern Division, Asian Division, European Division and Hispanic Division.
African and Middle Eastern Division
TITLE: Love Songs from the Middle East (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Various Speakers
EVENT DATE: 2017/02/16
RUNNING TIME: 39 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Through dramatic readings, Library specialists journeyed with their audience from the 7th century through modern times on the wings of love poems written by well-known poets from the Middle East and Spain. These poets included Qays ibn al-Mulawwah of 7th century Arabia, Judah Halevi (ca. 1075-1141) of Muslim Spain, Persian poet Hafiz (ca. 1325-1389), and Leyla Hanim (d. 1848) of Istanbul.
TITLE: Icons of the Coptic Church (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Evelyn Rophael
EVENT DATE: 2017/01/25
RUNNING TIME: 55 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Evelyn Rophael gives a presentation about the 2,000 year history of Christian icons of Egypt, including her own experience as a Coptic iconographer.
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY: Evelyn Rophael is an artist and specialist in Coptic iconography.
TITLE: Men in the Arena (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: J.R. Biersmith
EVENT DATE: 2016/12/16
RUNNING TIME: 60 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Filmmaker J.R. Biersmith discussed his documentary film “Men in the Arena,” about two Somali national soccer team friends chasing their dreams against impossible odds. It was shot in Somalia, Kenya and the United States.
TITLE: In Pursuit of Heritage: Tracing Early Elements of Islamic Architecture (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Rana Al Kadi
EVENT DATE: 2016/11/16
RUNNING TIME: 53 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Architectural historian and conservationist Rana Al Kadi spoke about the history of Islamic architecture from its origins in Damascus to North Africa, Spain and Turkey.
TITLE: The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Laila El-Haddad, Maggie Schmitt
EVENT DATE: 2016/11/14
RUNNING TIME: 53 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Laila El-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt discusses their book “The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey.”
Speaker Biography: Laila El-Haddad is an award-winning Palestinian writer, activist and public speaker. She was the Gaza correspondent for Al Jazeera English website and a regular contributor to the BBC World Service.
Speaker Biography: Maggie Schmitt is a writer, researcher, translator, educator and social activist. She has written extensively for the Atlantic and other publications.
TITLE: Ritual Archives (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Toyin Omoyeni Falola
EVENT DATE: 2016/10/27
RUNNING TIME: 82 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: African studies scholar Toyin Omoyeni Falola discussed ritual archives.
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY: Toyin Omoyeni Falola is a Nigerian historian and professor of African studies. He holds the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, at the University of Texas-Austin. He is a member of the Library of Congress Scholars Council, and has been in residence as the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South at the Library’s John W. Kluge Center.
TITLE: The Return of the Masters: Connections, Contestations & Redrawing of Persian Literary History (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Kevin Schwartz
EVENT DATE: 2016/10/25
RUNNING TIME: 56 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: As part of the Library’s lecture series on the Persian book, Kevin Schwartz discusses Persian literary history.
Speaker Biography: Kevin Schwartz is a Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress studying the mapping the transregional production and circulation of commemorative texts of Persian poets in the 19th Century. He has served as Middle East chair at the U.S. Naval Academy and a social science research council post-doctorate fellow for transregional research and visiting scholar at the Roshan Institute for Persian Studies at the University of Maryland.
TITLE: From Manuscript to Printed Text (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Ittai Joseph Tamari
EVENT DATE: 2016/10/19
RUNNING TIME: 34 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Ittai Joseph Tamari discussed the Talmud in a program sponsored in cooperation with the Jewish studies program of American University and the Judaic studies program of George Washington University.
Speaker Biography: Ittai Joseph Tamari is the director of the Center Archives for Research on the History of the Jews in Germany.
TITLE: Reintegration of Refugee Women in Post-Conflict Liberia (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso
EVENT DATE: 2016/10/13
RUNNING TIME: 61 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso discussed her research on ethical dilemmas and gender factors that affect returnee refugee women in Liberia.
TITLE: Where’s WANDA in Africa & Diaspora? (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Tambra Raye Stevenson
EVENT DATE: 2016/09/29
RUNNING TIME: 55 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Author Tambra Raye Stevenson discussed her “Where’s WANDA” book series and how the WANDA (Women Advancing Nutrition, Dietetics and Agriculture) character sparks the imagination of young girls to use food as a healing power in their families and communities.
TITLE: Imperial Exile (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Keith Bowers
EVENT DATE: 2016/09/22
RUNNING TIME: 59 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Keith Bowers discussed his book, “Imperial Exile” about Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie’s exile in Britain in the 1930s to escape the invading armies of the Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
TITLE: The Thirteenth Hour (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Zelda Kahan Newman
EVENT DATE: 2016/09/19
RUNNING TIME: 54 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
Translator Zelda Kahan Newman speaks about the Yiddish poetry of Rivka Basman Ben-Haim.
TITLE: Rahim AlHaj Trio: Middle Eastern Music from New Mexico (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Rahim AlHaj, Sourena Sefati, Issa Malluf
EVENT DATE: 2016/07/28
RUNNING TIME: 67 minutes
DESCRIPTION: The Rahim AlHaj Trio features traditional Middle Eastern music on the oud (Arabic lute) and antour (hammered dulcimer). This program was jointly sponsored by the American Folklife Center and the African and Middle Eastern Division.
Speaker Biography: Rahim AlHaj was born in Baghdad, Iraq and began playing the oud (Arabic lute) at age nine. He moved to the US in 2000 as a political refugee and has resided in Albuquerque, New Mexico, ever since. Rahim has performed around the globe and is considered one of the finest oud players in the world. His compositions evoke the experience of exile from his homeland and of new beginnings in his adopted country. In 2015 Rahim was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship.
Speaker Biography: Sourena Sefati was born in Ramsar, Iran, and started playing santour (hammered dulcimer) at age 11. He won the award for best composer of Iranian music at Art University in 2006 and served as instructor at Art University and Elmi-Karbordi University in Tehran from 2008 to 2014. Sourena moved to the United States in 2014, and teaches Iranian music in Albuquerque.
Speaker Biography: Issa Malluf is a Palestinian-American native of New Mexico. Originally self-taught, Issa has become a highly skilled and internationally recognized specialist in Middle Eastern, Arabic, and North African percussion.
TITLE: Malawi Music with Giddes Chalamanda (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Giddes Chalamanda
EVENT DATE: 2016/07/05
RUNNING TIME: 74 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: The 86-year-old Malawian musician, Giddes Chalamanda, performed his music for the first time in America at the Library of Congress.
TITLE: From Bomberg to the Beit Midrash (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Yoel Finkelman
EVENT DATE: 2016/06/23
RUNNING TIME: 57 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Yoel Finkelman discusses page layout in Venice Hebrew printing and the experience of rabbinic learning.
Speaker Biography: Yoel Finkelman is the curator of the Judaica Collection at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. He is responsible for the acquisition of new and rare items, digitization projects, and collection development.
TITLE: The Orthodox Church in Georgia Since Independence (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Paul Crego
EVENT DATE: 2016/06/02
RUNNING TIME: 60 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Paul Crego spoke about his research on the Orthodox Church in Georgia, including the writings and speeches of Zviad Gamsaxurdia, who was concerned with the spiritual health of the nation and with the state of the Georgian Orthodox Church.
TITLE: The Blumenthals of the Upper-Lower Peninsula of Michigan (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Janette Silverman
EVENT DATE: 2016/05/16
RUNNING TIME: 60 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: In celebration of Jewish-American Heritage Month, genealogist Janette Silverman discussed methodology and resources for doing genealogical research. She shared her own family research as a case study.
TITLE: Witness, Aleppo: Armenian, Assyrian & Arab Music, Stories & Images from Pre-war Syria (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Jason Hamacher
EVENT DATE: 2016/04/22
RUNNING TIME: 60 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Jason Hamacher discussed how he stumbled into a serious fascination with Syria’s endangered spiritual traditions.
TITLE: Perspectives on Islamic Law Reform (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Issam M. Saliba, Kristen A. Stilt, Intisar A. Rabb, Sherman A. Jackson
EVENT DATE: 2015/12/08
RUNNING TIME: 157 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: In recognition of Human Rights Day, a panel of distinguished Islamic scholars discussed Islamic law reform.
TITLE: Islam in America, 18th-21st Century (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Carolyn Brown, Marieta Harper, Derrick J. Beard, John O. Hunwick, Yvonne Y. Haddad, Prosser Gifford, Akbar S. Ahmed, Sylviane A. Diouf, Amir Al-Islam
EVENT DATE: 2002/01/29
RUNNING TIME: 169 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: A symposium on the impact of Islamic religion and culture in America.
Asian Division
TITLE: Voices from the Canefields: Folksongs from Japanese Immigrant Workers in Hawaii (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Franklin Odo
EVENT DATE: 2013/09/20
RUNNING TIME: 57 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Drawing on research for his recent book, “Voices from the Canefields,” author Franklin Odo situates over two hundred songs of Japanese immigrant workers in Hawaii, in translation, in a hitherto largely unexplored historical context.
Speaker Biography: Franklin S. Odo is a Japanese American author, scholar, activist and historian. Odo has served as the director of the Asian Pacific American Program at the Smithsonian Institution since the program’s inception in 1997.
European Division
TITLE: Italian Cuisine in the World (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Domenica Marchetti, Renato Miracco
EVENT DATE: 2016/11/14
RUNNING TIME: 64 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Domenica Marchetti and Amy Riolo participate in a panel discussion on the history of Italian cuisine and culture worldwide.
TITLE: If Venice Dies (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Salvatore Settis, Michael Wise
EVENT DATE: 2016/10/27
RUNNING TIME: 62 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Salvatore Settis pleads for the survival of Venice in a moving discussion on the meaning of cities.
Speaker Biography: Salvatore Settis is chairman of the Louvre Museum’s Scientific Council and a widely-published archaeologist and art historian. He was director of the Getty Research Institute of Los Angeles, and professor at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa.
Speaker Biography: Michael Wise is co-founder of New Vessel Press, publisher of the English translation of “If Venice Dies.” Wise has been a foreign correspondent for Reuters and The Washington Post and is the author of a book on German architecture. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The Atlantic and Foreign Policy.
TITLE: Quantifying the Soviet Economic & Social Crisis of 1920: Food Supply, Rail Transport, Fuel, Demographics (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Jonathan Kapiloff
EVENT DATE: 2016/09/29
RUNNING TIME: 65 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Jonathan Kapiloff discusses food supply, rail transport, fuel and demographic information related to the Soviet economic and social crisis of 1920.
Speaker Biography: Jonathan Kapiloff studied at Columbia University under the Russian historian Mark Raeff. He earned postgraduate degrees from the University of California at Berkeley where he studied under historians Nicholas Riasanovsky and Martin Malia.
Hispanic Division
TITLE: With Borges: A Conversation with María Kodama (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: María Kodama, Saul Sosnowski
EVENT DATE: 2016/12/07
RUNNING TIME: 66 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: María Kodama discussed the work of her late husband, Jorge Luis Borges, with Saul Sosnowski of the University of Maryland. Ms. Kodama speaks in Spanish, with an English translator.
TITLE: Why Don Quixote is the Best Work of Fiction According to 100 Authors (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Hernán Sánchez Martínez Pinillos
EVENT DATE: 2016/10/21
RUNNING TIME: 57 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Hernán Sánchez Martínez de Pinillos discussed the life of Miguel de Cervantes and his great literary work, Don Quixote.
Speaker Biography: Hernán Sánchez Martínez de Pinillos is a professor in the department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Maryland at College Park.
TITLE: El Carro del Amor (The Cart of Love) (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Ana María Ruimonte
EVENT DATE: 2016/10/06
RUNNING TIME: 90 minutes
Mezzo-soprano Ana María Ruimonte presents “El carro del amor” (“The Cart of Love”), a multimedia theatrical spectacular of Spanish Baroque Music of the 17th century, featuring puppets and live musicians Tom Teasley, Alan Lewine and special guests. Mature themes.
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