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A Guide to Openly Accessible Media and Streaming Video Content (January 2021): Language and Literature

by Susan Ariew, LeEtta Schmidt, and Matt Torrence

Language and Literature

Among the excellent literature sites is Discovering Literature, sponsored by the British Library, which includes short documentaries exploring great works of literature and their locales. For example, the “Romantics” and “Victorian” sections include such greats as Jane Austen, the Brontës, and Dickens. Britannica: Literature covers novels, poems, tragedies, and epic works from Shakespeare to Melville. Videos offer brief, theatrical productions of many great works. The Berkeley Language Center’s Lumière includes some 20,400 clips drawn from the Foreign Language Film Library’s collection of 5,815 films in 62 languages. Those who wish to use it must apply for an account. Innovative Language Learning (YouTube) has videos about how best to learn a new language, language basics for a variety of non-Western languages (e.g., Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, and Japanese), and video content about writing and the alphabet in several unusual languages.