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  Orphans of the East - Postwar...

  Constantin Parvulescu

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  An analysis of films produced in post-World War II Eastern Europe featuring the trope of the orphan, and the issues these characters addressed. 
   
  Unlike the benevolent orphan found in Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid or the sentimentalized figure of Little Orphan Annie, the orphan in postwar Eastern European cinema takes on a more politically fraught role, embodying the tensions of individuals struggling to recover from war and grappling with an unknown future under Soviet rule. By exploring films produced in postwar Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Poland, Constantin Parvulescu traces the way in which cinema envisioned and debated the condition of the post-World War II subject and the “new man” of Soviet-style communism. In these films, the orphan becomes a cinematic trope that interrogates socialist visions of ideological institutionalization and re-education and stands as a silent critic of the system’s shortcomings or as a resilient spirit who has resisted capture by the political apparatus of the new state. 
   
  “By using the trope of an orphan Constantin Parvulescu demonstrates how films made in countries such as Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania reflected on the specific problems affecting Eastern Europe after 1945, such as the loss of population, economic backwardness, the legacy of the Holocaust, while engaging in wider debates, especially the superiority of socialism over capitalism. Economically and elegantly written, it demonstrates that cinema produced in the periphery can be central to our understanding of films as ideological tools. This is one of the best books on Eastern European cinema ever written.” —Ewa Mazierska, University of Central Lancashire 
   
  “Groundbreaking. . . . The author’s comparative, transnational perspective in chapters devoted to close textual analyses of each narrative demonstrates the value of reading film as a primary source for understanding the relationships among state power, intergenerational trauma, and revolutionary subjectivity. Parvulescu’s highly original portrayal of a landscape of parentless children evokes the trauma of war and the specificity of the socialist experiment in the former Eastern Bloc.” —Catherine Portuges, University of Massachusetts-Amherst 
   
  “Parvulescu has taken a highly innovative approach to socialist and post-socialist cinema in the region, and one that is vividly illustrated by a superb selection of films.” —Studies in European Cinema

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  Afroleon

  Adeboye Oluwajuyitan

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  "Before my version begins to fade, 
  Let me relieve what happened today. 
  Today was not a lifetime of discrimination and shame, 
  But of celebration as a black man living in Ukraine." 
  - culled from the EPIGRAPH 
  A brave and explorative Artisan 
  Calm exterior but he was born a warrior 
  A Leon not bothered about territory 
  A Leon who hunted alone. 
  And a Leon who hurt alone. 
  With a free prefrontal cortex, he came prepared for learning... 
  And learn he did, as his memory campus would get soiled with complex realities. 
  In my first anatomy tour, all I saw were dry cadavers, 
  But by the end of my tenure, I saw my own fresh blood. 
  No tribal marks but you can tell he started out with an Afro. 
  And in this foreign soil, explorations were his special dish. 
  To-and-fro he evolved... and no, he didn't hail from the safari. 
  From a genial ark but he always kept his wits about him. 
  And when he stepped out, he was like a fresh aphrodisiac. 
  Through his eyes, you could hear all of his favorite tunes. 
  Black vanilla at his core as he had a thing for interfacing. 
  General with a stylus brush, 
  Hankie forever in the back pocket. 
  Like his paws, his heart appears four-chambered, 
  But on closer inspection, you see a fifth chamber a short distance away from the rest. 
  A blind Cub walking in the midst of hyenas, 
  With lesions so deep, they suffocated him where it hurt most. 
  The pages are filled with art and expression, 
  As I relive this once-in-a-lifetime experience... 
  Which shaped me into the man I am today.

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  Head Shoulders Knees and Toes

  Iesha Wright

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  This adorable action song will encourage young learners to follow simple directions. Kids will love to tap their heads, shoulders, knees, and toes while singing along with this classic children's song. Repetitive lyrics encourage early literacy skills which is great for preschoolers. This Sing-A-Story features bright art showing diversity to help children form a sense of acceptance and understanding of different races and individual differences.

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  Yearning For ‘Peace’ When A...

  PBS NewsHour

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  Five years into Europe's migration crisis, the conditions in the notorious Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos are hellish. Refugee children are especially vulnerable, facing hunger, bad sanitation and the threat of violence. Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports that angry local residents are demanding a solution.

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  How The Dallas Street Choir...

  PBS NewsHour

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  The mantra of the Dallas Street Choir is “homeless, not voiceless.” Some 2,000 singers have passed through the group in the last five years, seeking support, artistic expression and community as they contend with life on the streets. The organization also aims to raise awareness of Dallas’ growing homelessness problem, even as the city’s economy booms. Jeffrey Brown reports.

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  The Pope & the Heretic - The...

  Michael White

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  Giordano Bruno challenged everything in his pursuit of an all-embracing system of thought. This not only brought him patronage from powerful figures of the day but also put him in direct conflict with the Catholic Church. Arrested by the Inquisition and tried as a heretic, Bruno was imprisoned, tortured, and, after eight years, burned at the stake in 1600. The Vatican "regrets" the burning yet refuses to clear him of heresy.But Bruno's philosophy spread: Galileo, Isaac Newton, Christiaan Huygens, and Gottfried Leibniz all built upon his ideas; his thought experiments predate the work of such twentieth-century luminaries as Karl Popper; his religious thinking inspired such radicals as Baruch Spinoza; and his work on the art of memory had a profound effect on William Shakespeare.Chronicling a genius whose musings helped bring about the modern world, Michael White pieces together the final years -- the capture, trial, and the threat the Catholic Church felt -- that made Bruno a martyr of free thought.

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