November 21, 2017

Best of the Studs Terkel Radio Archive

Studs Terkel was undoubtedly one of the great radio interviewers of the 20th century. Listen to 100s of interviews conducted by the multifaceted Studs Terkel who hosted “The Studs Terkel Program” on Chicago’s fine arts radio station WFMT from 1952 to 1997. The audio galleries on Studs Terkel Radio Archive website and now on SoundCloud feature many of his radio show interviews covering the arts, literature, poetry, civil rights, philosophy, politics, film, and sports from the past century. There are also interviews with everyday people who experienced the major 20th century events of the Great Depression, World War II, Labor movements, and the Civil Rights movement in the 20th century. And then there are the interviews with some of the leading voices and minds of the 20th century.

At the beginning of 2016 the Studs Terkel Radio Archive launched a Kickstarter and earned over $80,000 along with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Their Kickstarter pledge: “Over two years, we aim to make an additional 1000 of Studs Terkel’s programs freely available for listening, exploring, and remixing.”

UPDATE! As of 2020 the Studs Terkel Radio Archive is live! The majority of the thousands of interviews Studs conducted are now available on audio on the site with great sound quality. You can browse the entire radio archive on their site here:

Browse Hundreds of Recordings on the Studs Terkel Radio Archive

We went through the entire archive and picked out some of the best interviews from the 45 years of the radio archive. Here are some great interviews you can listen to:

Dorothy Parker Discusses Her Plays
Norman Mailer Discusses His Writing
R. Buckminster Fuller in Conversation
Simone de Beauvoir Discusses the Art of Writing
Buster Keaton Discusses Comedy
Aaron Copland Discusses His Career
Tennessee Williams Talks with Studs Terkel
Rita Moreno Discusses West Side Story
Sidney Poitier Discusses The Defiant Ones
Newton Minow Discusses Broadcasting
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Discusses Civil Rights
Woody Allen Discusses His Comedy
Marshall McLuhan Talks with Studs Terkel
Pauline Kael Discusses Her Book Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Hunter S. Thompson Discussing Hell’s Angels
Cesar Chavez Discusses Farm Labor Rights
Gore Vidal Discusses Myra Breckinridge
Mel Brooks Discusses The Producers
Ralph Nader Discusses Unsafe at Any Speed
David Halberstam Discusses Bobby Kennedy
Noam Chomsky Discusses American Power and the New Mandarins
Bertrand Russell Talks with Studs Terkel
Maya Angelou Discusses I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Ralph Ellison Talks with Studs Terkel
Agitator: A Tribute to Saul D. Alinsky
Alan Watts Discusses In My Own Way
Janis Joplin Discusses Her Career
Thich Nhat Hanh Discusses The Vietnam War
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward Discuss All the President’s Men
Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader Discuss Taxi Driver
Oceanographer Jacques Cousteau Talks with Studs Terkel
Allen Ginsberg Discusses Poetry and Meditation
Susan Sontag Discusses Tuberculosis
Pauline Kael Discusses Film in 1980
Gore Vidal Discusses Lincoln
William Friedkin Talks with Studs Terkel
Carl Sagan Discusses Contact
Oliver Sacks Talks with Studs Terkel
Margaret Atwood Discusses The Handmaid’s Tale
Elmore Leonard Discusses Get Shorty
Ray Bradbury Discusses His Books
Roger Ebert Discusses Old Movies

To learn more about the life and times of Studs Terkel check out this great interview from 2004 with Terkel:

Keeping the Faith in Difficult Times: Conversation with Studs Terkel

In this hour long streaming video interview, Conversations with History host Harry Kreisler interviews Studs later in his life. It is a fascinating and funny interview which covers much of Terkel’s life and his philosophy on life in America. He also openly expresses his opinions about the media and the politicians today. Although in his 90s at the time, Terkel lucidly reminisces about his life and the lessons he has learned from it. This video is available to stream through YouTube.

November 15, 2017

Best FRONTLINE Documentaries & Podcasts

FRONTLINE has produced over 500 documentary films on contemporary social and political issues in the past 20 years. And you can not only watch most of them online for free through the PBS FRONTLINE website, but you can also listen to over 50 of them on the Frontline Audiocast Podcast. While the popular Frontline Audiocast Podcast lacked the visual component, it still was usually comprehendible as an audio podcast with some audio cues to aid listeners. Now FRONTLINE has launched their first audio-only podcast in The FRONTLINE Dispatch Podcast and it applies FRONTLINE’s investigative reporting to the podcast medium with superb audio documentaries. Check it out here:

The FRONTLINE Dispatch Podcast

This new podcast currently features five audio documentaries. In each documentary a journalist guides you through the story as it is interspersed with interviews and audio source material to aid in the storytelling. For an interesting listen, check out the episode “The Housing Fix” which examines the complicated relationship between slum landlords, tenants, and city planners, as many living in poverty are evicted from their homes to make way for pricier housing developments. Set in the city neighborhoods of Dallas, but indicative of what’s happening in many U.S. urban cities, the audio documentary paints a complex portrait of the challenges in maintaining affordable living conditions for the nation’s poor and lower middle class. That’s just one of the audio documentaries you can hear in this new podcast from FRONTLINE that you’ll probably want to subscribe to.

If you’d like to listen to FRONTLINE documentaries, then can also listen to over 50 of them on the:

Frontline Audiocast – PBS Podcast

The PBS Frontline series are some of the best documentaries available on public television, but it’s often difficult to carve out time to sit down and watch them. Now Frontline has released a group of their documentaries as audio podcasts and they actually work really well as just audio. Since most of the Frontline documentaries feature talking heads interviews along with narration they don’t really require the visual component. Also Frontline has done the service of inserting audio of the name of the person who is talking before each interview. Each podcast runs about an hour.

We also feature over 150 of the best FRONTLINE documentaries on streaming video on our site and we plan add more soon. Browse the best of FRONTLINE on LearnOutLoud:

Browse Over 150 of the Best Free FRONTLINE Documentaries

FRONTLINE also has started their 36th season. Below are three of the best documentaries from the new season:

North Korea’s Deadly Dictator

In North Korea’s Deadly Dictator, FRONTLINE presents the bizarre story of the murder of Kim Jong-un’s half-brother Kim Jong-nam in Malaysia in February of 2017. As the days after the murder by chemical attack progressed, the investigation increasingly appeared to be an assassination conducted by the North Korean leadership in response to Kim Jong-nam speaking up against the regime. The documentary then turns towards the increasing aggression of North Korea and their nuclear weapons program which has loomed over 2017. It covers the response of the Trump administration and potential ways of dealing with the threat North Korea poses. The documentary features footage from inside North Korea and interviews of experts on the Korean conflict.

Mosul

In the FRONTLINE documentary Mosul, viewers will get an inside look at the battle young Iraqi soldiers fought to drive ISIS out of Mosul in Iraq. It’s a brutal and sometimes graphic look at the violence in the region. The documentary doesn’t feature narration, but instead focuses on the battles and words of the soldiers fighting them. With many innocent men, women, and children caught in the crossfire and a city decimated, it is a difficult look into the heart of a battle that cost thousands of civilian lives.

Putin’s Revenge

In the two-part documentary Putin’s Revenge, FRONTLINE casts a light on the Russian President Vladimir Putin. In part one you’ll learn about Putin’s role in the KGB at the end of the Cold War and his rise to power under Boris Yeltsin. You’ll also hear about his ongoing strain with the United States including Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama. By gaining firm control of Russian state media, Putin has been able to shift the blame of many global conflicts and uprisings onto the United States. His ire against the U.S. was eventually directed towards Hillary Clinton who was the U.S. Secretary of State at the time Muammar Gaddafi was ousted from power and killed in Libya. Part two of Putin’s Revenge focuses on Putin’s more recent political meddling in the Ukraine and then in the Presidential election of the United States. U.S. intelligence agents and journalists comment on the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails and the cyber campaigns and fake news stories that were initiated to tarnish the campaign of Hillary Clinton. At the same time of these attacks, Republican candidate Donald Trump encouraged both the Russians and Wikileaks to hack emails in order to expose the corruption of his opponent Hillary Clinton. And on election day in November of 2016, Putin believed he had succeeded in his attempts to influence U.S. politics and derail the Clinton campaign, when Donald Trump was elected U.S. President. If you’d like to listen to Putin’s Revenge, you can listen to it on the Frontline Audiocast Podcast as well.

In addition to this 2-hour documentary, FRONTLINE has put up over 30 full length interviews with many of the key interviewees featured in the Putin’s Revenge documentary, including many interviews that last over an hour in length. They’ve assembled a YouTube playlist which you can watch all of the interviews on:

FRONTLINE: The Putin Files

And in the past we’ve featured numerous FRONTLINE documentaries in our Free Resource of the Day Email. Here are all the FRONTLINE documentaries we’ve featured in the past. Note: It seems that only U.S. viewers can watch these for free. Sorry to our international users.

The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela

This 2-hour PBS FRONTLINE documentary covers Nelson Mandela’s amazing life story, from his radical political activism in Johannesburg as a youth to his over 20-year imprisonment, and then to his remarkable rise as the President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999 in which he presided over the dismantling of apartheid. This documentary features excellent footage from all periods in Mandela’s life along with interviews of the people closest to him. It’s a story that must be heard to be believed. Watch this superb documentary from PBS online.

The Wounded Platoon

Watch this free FRONTLINE documentary, and it will certainly bring our armed service veterans to the forefront of your mind. This PBS documentary takes a look at a platoon of U.S. infantrymen and their tours of duty in Iraq and the difficulties they faced in returning to everyday life. It provides a glimpse into the horrors of war, along with the horrors of returning from war when psychological wounds often haunt soldiers. The film examines the lives of numerous men from this platoon, many of whom are inflicted with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which sometimes leads to violent and self-destructive behavior. It’s a sobering reminder of our collective responsibility to our veterans and to the soldiers currently serving the United States of America.

The Soldier’s Heart

This free FRONTLINE documentary will certainly bring our armed service veterans to the forefront of your mind. This 2005 PBS documentary examines the lives of numerous men who returned from the Iraq War and were inflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The veterans tell their stories of the horrors of war and the difficulty they had in coping with life after coming home. Numerous mental health professionals offer their advice on coping with PTSD throughout the documentary. It’s a sobering reminder of our collective responsibility to our veterans and to the soldiers currently serving the United States of America. This documentary is available on streaming video through the PBS website.

Syria Behind the Lines

Watch this recent PBS Frontline documentary to get an up close view of the ongoing Syrian civil war. Award-winning filmmaker Olly Lambert attempts to show both sides of the conflict by following a Sunni rebel soldier and a Syrian Army soldier serving in President Bashar al-Assad’s army. It’s a pretty horrific documentary depicting graphic imagery of the ongoing violence in this bloody conflict with a death toll surpassing 100,000. But, in light of recent events, it is definitely worth watching to get a glimpse into what is happening in Syria on the ground level.

Syria Undercover & The Regime Responds

These two documentaries on Syria were aired in November 8, 2011. In the 30-minute documentary “Syria Undercover” reporter Ramita Navai goes undercover to see what is happening to protesters during the Syria uprising. She seems to enter one dangerous scenario after another as the Syrian army cracks down on the protests. In the second 20-minute documentary “The Regime”, Frontline takes a look at the history of the rule of the Al-Assad family over Syria since 1970. They examine the rule of the current President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, and how his reforms may have led to the Syrian uprising during the “Arab Spring” movement, which President Assad is now trying to suppress.

The Rise of ISIS

Watch this PBS Frontline documentary on the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Starting with the withdrawal of American ground troops, this documentary examines the political climate of Iraq and the conflicts between Shiites and Sunni Iraqis since that time. After increased dissatisfaction with Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his support of Shiites, the Sunni insurgency began to grow. Aided by the rise of ISIS in the Syrian Civil War, the group began driving out Iraqi government forces in key western cities in Iraq. The documentary concludes with ISIS controlling large portions of both Iraq and Syria, and revealing their notorious human rights abuses and war crimes. With interviews from U.S. intelligence officials and members of the Obama administration, the documentary examines the increased recent involvement of the U.S. in the region and the possibility of putting ground troops back in Iraq. This 50-minute documentary is available to stream for free from the PBS Frontline website.

Digital Nation

In this PBS documentary Frontline turns its eye to our digital age and how the ubiquitousness of computers and the Internet are transforming our lives. They examine the role of digital technology from many angles, but primarily focus on its role in education. The big question is are these technologies enhancing education or dumbing it down, and the answers the filmmakers get are quite mixed. From the halls of MIT to the unique schools which utilize gaming as the primary form of learning, teachers and students chime in about what they think digital technology is doing to education. The documentary also explores virtual reality and the world of Second Life. They talk to avid gamers, IBM employees who virtually meet in Second Life, and veterans who utilize virtual reality to confront their PTSD. The film covers many other topics from Korean kids addicted to video games to military service members who conduct drone strikes from remote posts in Nevada. The filmmakers do an excellent job of showcasing what is gained and what is lost as we rapidly move forward as a digital nation.

Generation Like

In this superb follow up to his Frontline documentary The Merchants of Cool, Frontline filmmaker Douglas Rushkoff tries to figure out what is happening at the intersection of teens and corporate marketing in this new digital age. No longer the passive consumers of the media that is presented to them, teens are now empowered through social media with a new social currency of “likes”. From Facebook to YouTube to Twitter, Rushkoff looks at how teens are interacting with celebrities, movies, and brands in new ways. He interviews rising YouTube stars about the ways they are collaborating with companies to market their products. He also goes to some of the hottest social media marketing companies to see how they generate buzz for their clients. In the end he finds that the idea of “selling out” is something foreign to this new digital generation and that they are plenty willing to play along with corporate marketing in exchange for more “likes”.

And if you want to revisit them, they’ve been offering their special Presidential election documentaries “The Choice” on their YouTube channel for the past three election cycles:

FRONTLINE: The Choice 2008

Watch this 2-hour PBS Frontline documentary entitled “The Choice 2008”. This informative documentary intertwines the biographical story of the presidential candidates John McCain & Barack Obama along with a behind-the-scenes look at the ups and downs of their presidential campaigns over the past few years. A host of commentators from political strategists to biographers to personal friends of the candidates chime in with their observations. This documentary is free to watch on streaming video on YouTube.

Frontline: The Choice 2012

Each presidential election year PBS produces the Frontline documentary “The Choice”. Watch the 2-hour documentary “The Choice 2012” on YouTube. This documentary goes beyond the talking points of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and looks at their biographies in order to discover what drives them and informs their decisions. The documentary goes back to the upbringing of both candidates and follows them through their rise in politics and some of their more recent political struggles. It’s a good look at Obama and Romney with insightful interviews from some of the people that have been closest to them. Enjoy this free documentary.

Frontline: The Choice 2016

Each presidential election the PBS series Frontline produces an election special that profiles the two major candidates. Their two-hour special is now available to stream on their YouTube channel. This special covers the biographies of the frontrunners Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald Trump, and the long and very different paths they took to reach this point. With interviews from biographers and people closest to each of the candidates you get an idea of what has driven these individuals throughout their careers. You’ll hear the story of Hillary Clinton and her entry into Democratic politics from her years as first lady of Arkansas and then the United States, to her role as Senator of New York and Secretary of State. You’ll also hear about the rise of Donald J. Trump, the wealthy American businessman who came of age in the 1980s and kept his brand alive into 1990s and became a reality TV star in the 2000s. You’ll hear about the scandals and hardships they’ve faced throughout their long lives in the public eye and their persistence through it all in “Frontline: The Choice 2016”.

November 13, 2017

How to Access iTunes U Content in the New iTunes

For those of you who are fans of the free audio & video courses and lectures on iTunes U and you downloaded iTunes 12.7, you might’ve been shocked and dismayed to learn that the ability to browse iTunes U is no longer a main menu option within iTunes on your desktop. As of their September 2017 iTunes 12.7 release, iTunes U was merged with the Podcasts section. So while the iTunes U content is still there and you can search for it, the ability to browse it is now difficult in iTunes. You can browse it within the iTunes U iOS app on your iPhone or iPad. But if you don’t have an iPhone or iPad, it’s harder to find all this great free educational content. Also after browsing the iOS app we found that a lot of the content that universities are offering is not easy to find within the iOS app, but it is still up in iTunes. It’s a little confusing, but Apple has now divided the iTunes U content into Podcasts and Course Collections and the Course Collections are not accessible outside of iOS. But a lot of the actual courses are listed as Podcasts and are accessible via iTunes.

Anyway after some digging we did locate the link to the iTunes U browse page on iTunes. Here it is:

New iTunes U Browse Page on iTunes

But for desktop users this browse page doesn’t help a whole lot because for the most part it only links to the Course Collections that are only accessible on iOS. It does not link to the Podcasts which offer a lot more iTunes U content than is accessible in the iTunes U app.

So in this blog post we’ll try to help you out with locating all that iTunes U has to offer in iTunes. Hopefully in the future Apple will make an iTunes U Podcast browse section of their podcast directory and hopefully they’ll make the iTunes Course Collections accessible to all (not just iOS users). For now we thought we’d aid you with links to the top college & university providers on iTunes and their new Podcasts pages, along with links to iTunes U content that we’ve featured on our site.

You can access a lot of the iTunes U content directly through the university podcast provider pages. We went through all of the providers in iTunes U and picked out the best ones to link to. So we’ll start by providing you with links to some of the top iTunes U providers on iTunes:

Stanford University on iTunes

Harvard University on iTunes

Yale University on iTunes

Columbia University on iTunes

MIT OpenCourseware on iTunes

UC Berkeley on iTunes

UCLA on iTunes

Duke University on iTunes

University of Southern California on iTunes

Ohio State University on iTunes

Arizona State University on iTunes

Oxford University on iTunes

University of London on iTunes

The Open University on iTunes

University of Pennsylvania on iTunes

UCTV on iTunes

University of Chicago on iTunes

La Trobe University on iTunes

DePaul University on iTunes

The University of Texas at Austin on iTunes

Caltech on iTunes

Carnegie Mellon University on iTunes

American University on iTunes

Emory University on iTunes

Chapman University on iTunes

UC Davis on iTunes

Cornell University on iTunes

Georgetown University on iTunes

Missouri State University on iTunes

New York University on iTunes

UC Irvine on iTunes

University of Arizona on iTunes

University of Notre Dame on iTunes

Reformed Theological Seminary on iTunes

University of Glasgow on iTunes

And here are some iTunes U providers that are not universities or colleges:

Library of Congress on iTunes

The Aspen Ideas Festival on iTunes

U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on iTunes

Center for Strategic and International Studies on iTunes

U.S. National Archives on iTunes

Smithsonian Folkways on iTunes

Also we still link to a number of iTunes U offerings through LearnOutLoud. Here are some of courses and offerings we’ve collected over the years:

Over 70 Courses & Lectures from Stanford University on iTunes & YouTube

30 Courses from La Trobe University

Over 20 Free Courses from UC Davis on iTunes & YouTube

10 Courses from Arizona State University

Over 15 Courses from East Tennessee State University

12 Courses from the University of New Orleans

9 Courses from Utah Valley University

3 Courses from the University of Oklahoma

7 Courses from Johns Hopkins University

15 Courses from Liberty University

30 Courses from Missouri State University on iTunes & YouTube

13 Courses from New York University on iTunes & YouTube

8 Courses from Ohio State University

12 Course from Seattle Pacific University

9 University of Michigan Courses

22 Courses from Harrisburg Area Community College

5 Courses from Parkland College

8 Courses from the New Jersey Institute of Technology

18 Courses from Covenant Theological Seminary

3 Courses from DePaul University

30 Courses from the Reformed Theological Seminary

4 University of Arizona Courses

And here is over 50 other iTunes U courses we link to:

50 More iTunes Courses

And here are some of the individual courses and offerings we’ve featured over the years:

Exploring the Hobbit

In this free course provided by iTunes U on audio download, Corey Olsen offers a thorough, chapter by chapter discussion of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, discussing character, plot, and thematic elements in lovingly exhaustive detail. Olsen stresses Tolkien’s careful choice of words, the importance of poetry and music in The Hobbit and the careful tonal balance the author keeps between whimsical prose and serious subject matter. In the end, Bilbo Baggins’ journey mirrors the reader’s journey from mundane every-day existence to an ever-expanding vista that becomes more fantastic, more magical and more dangerous as the story progresses. With Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit film adaptation coming to a close, this course is a perfect way to dig into the source material, learn more about Tolkien’s work, and explore how The Hobbit fits into the grander story told with the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The Literature of Crisis

In addition to their other offerings through Stanford on iTunes, Stanford University is offering this course for free through iTunes U on audio download. This Intro to Humanities course entitled “The Literature of Crisis” explores crisis when it occurs at the personal, familial, and societal levels through six major works of literature. Professor Martin Evans and Marsh McCall are both dynamic lecturers that lead listeners through these works. While it seems a lot can be derived from the lectures without reading the works, you may want to read (or listen to) some of the works yourself in conjuction with listening to the lectures. Here are the works they examine (with links to these titles on audio book): Apology by Plato, The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius, Oedipus the King by Sophocles, Hamlet by Shakespeare, The Aeneid by Virgil, and Candide by Voltaire.

Story of Freedom in America

Professor J. Rufus Fears was an American historian, scholar, teacher, and author, who was best known for his many courses he taught through the Teaching Company that produces The Great Courses. Now you can get one of his “great” courses absolutely free from the University of Oklahoma through iTunes U. In a series of 18 dynamic audio & video lectures supplemented by downloadable documents, Professor J. Rufus Fears tells the story of how America’s vision of freedom became a model for the entire world. As Fears argues in the first lecture, one of the main reasons America has endured is because the founding fathers used lessons from the past to make decisions in the present and plan for the future. This sense of what works historically and what we should avoid has given the great American leaders (from Jefferson to Lincoln to FDR) a sturdy precedent that can be used as a tool to forge ahead. With that established, Fears says the purpose of the course will be to reflect upon the lessons provided by major turning points in American history and how we can use this history to tackle the problems the world faces today. Enjoy this course from a truly great professor and historian.

Introduction to Human Anatomy

Utah Valley University Professor Michael J. Shively leads a course that will explore the structure and function of the most remarkable machine on earth: the Human Body. In a series of video lectures, Shively goes over how human anatomy is broken down to the sub-atomic level, back up to the “gross” or observable elements we can study with the naked eye. As they progress through the course, Shively asks his students to continually build upon what they are learning, providing a cell by cell, bone by bone picture of how human beings function and how we differ from other living beings. Fun and easy to digest, Shively’s dynamic videos easily draw both the student and the viewer in on a fascinating topic. This 38 lesson course is available on free video via iTunes U.

History of Modern Philosophy

In this free audio course from iTunes U, Professor Clarence Mark Phillips from the University of New Orleans presents a philosophical survey from the 17th century to the beginning of the 19th century (from Descartes to Kant) and tracks how rational thought splintered into fields such as political science, economics, and evolutionary psychology. It focuses on on how certain Renaissance-era thinkers began to respond to earlier philosophical traditions from antiquity, leading to new concepts that became hallmarks of the Enlightenment period and laid the bedrock for the modern mind. Phillips stresses that one of the main points of the course is to engage the learner to grapple head-on with the concepts discussed so they might develop analytical tools that go beyond the subject at hand and so they can be used in everyday life. Download or listen to this audio course through iTunes.

Jerusalem: The Holy City

UCLA professor Robert Cargill teaches a class that considers how the the three major world religions focused on Jerusalem as a center of holy significance. Cargill begins the course by tracking why a regionally unexceptional city became so important in the first place. Starting chronologically with Genesis, he traces the history of Jewish settlement in the region, to the rise of Christianity and the latter development of Islam. Throughout each lecture, Cargill tethers every historical era to the physical geography of the city itself, showcasing how cultural and religious development was mirrored by the changing significance of specific landmarks. Viewed in this light, Cargill’s course demonstrates how different cultures externalize and maintain their religious beliefs through physical objects and places. This course is available on video through iTunes U.

Colonial and Revolutionary America

The ways in which scholars and teachers approach American History has gone through a major shakeup in recent years, and in this free course presented by Stanford, students will be given a chance to assess the new ways we might investigate American origins. Historian and professor Jack Rakove identifies two strands of thinking when it comes to American history: the first, more conventional take examines American history through the prism of British colonial involvement and the transplantation of English institutions into North America. The second, more contemporary view sets the clock back to European “discovery”, starting with Columbus and tracing the vast exchanges over what became known as the Atlantic Ocean. Setting up his survey in these terms, Rakove explains that writing a strong narrative of American history has always been tough to do, and the course will try to navigate the complex series of interactions that led to the development of the North American continent up the Revolutionary generation. This course is available on audio through iTunes U.

Romanticism Course

Who were the Romantics? In this free course conducted by Timothy Morton, listeners will learn about an innovative literary period between 1790 and 1820 that produced influential writers such as William Blake, Jane Austen, William Wordsworth, John Keats, and Mary Shelley. Centered primarily in England at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the Romantic poets began to grapple with a changing world that was dominated by capitalist ambition, a growing consumerism, and the explosive development of democratic political reforms. Morton also feels that with this change there came a new self-awareness that the romantics tapped into, where many became conscious of a newfound intellectual and expressive freedom. The course will not only cover the writers and their work, but also pay special attention to how their thinking helped influence modern self-understanding. It’s being offered on audio on iTunes U.

How to Think Like a Psychologist

In this free mini-course provided by Stanford University, Upside of Stress author and psychologist Kelly McGonigal hosts a survey of current trends in psychology and how they might offer strategies for use in daily life. With each class, cutting edge psychologists offer a lecture on their specific areas of study, followed by lively interviews with McGonigal and questions from the class. Fascinating topics covered include how to use meditation to combat anxiety, finding practical techniques to manage our emotions, and what really makes human beings unique. A must for anyone interested in the role psychology plays in daily life, and for those that want to learn more about the newest, exciting innovations in the field. This course is available on video through iTunes U.

Hopefully this post helps you find the riches of iTunes U!

November 8, 2017

500 Best Free Movies on Tubi TV

A lot of the movies below are now gone from Tubi but a lot more have been added. Please check out our latest blog on the best Tubi movies:

800 Best Free Movies on Tubi TV in 2019

We recently discovered Tubi TV! It is a free ad-supported streaming TV and movie network offering more than 50,000 titles from impressive partners including Lionsgate, MGM, Paramount Pictures, and Starz. They raised over $20 million earlier this year and offer popular apps on the iPhone/iPad, Android devices, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire, and more. Last year Hulu stopped offering free ad-supported movies and TV shows, but Tubi TV has stepped in to fill that void. And their platform seems a lot smoother in terms of user experience than other free movie platforms out there. A few things to note before you dive in. The viewing rights to their movies vary outside the United States, so sorry if you cannot watch these. Also if the movie is rated “R” you’re likely to have to create account and sign in, in order to view the movie. But we recommend creating an account, so then you can create a “Queue” of the movies and TV shows you want to watch in the future.

Like all movie sites there are a lot of not-so-good movies to sift through. To help you find some good movies, we’ve gone through their entire movie catalog and picked out the top 500 movies you can watch right now through their site and apps. We’ll start with their documentaries, since a lot of these we’ve added into our LearnOutLoud.com Free Documentaries Collection, and we’ll be adding a lot more soon. Beyond documentaries, we’ve picked out movies in the genres of Action, Classics, Comedy, Drama, Horror, and Thrillers. Here are over 500 of their best free movies that we picked out (we’ve sorted them by year):

FREE DOCUMENTARIES:

A.K.A Cassius Clay (1970)
Marjoe (1972)
The Last Waltz (1978)
From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China (1979)
Genocide (1980)
The Decline of Western Civilization (1981)
Atomic Café (1982)
Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
Stop Making Sense (1983)
The Decline of Western Civilization, Part II: The Metal Years (1988)
Let’s Get Lost (1989)
Madonna: Truth or Dare (1990)
The Last Party (1992)
The Restless Conscience (1992)
Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie (1995)
Atomic Filmmakers: Hollywoods Secret Film Studio (1996)
Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam (1996)
The Long Way Home (1996)
Mandela (1996)
The Cruise (1997)
Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997)
The Decline of Western Civilization Part III (1998)
Kurt and Courtney (1998)
Atomic Journeys: Welcome to Ground Zero (1999)
Genghis Blues (1999)
My Best Fiend (1999)
The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2000)
Startup.com (2001)
7 Days in September (2002)
Amandla!: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony (2002)
Bowling for Columbine (2002)
Hell’s Highway (2002)
OT: Our Town (2002)
The Weather Underground (2002)
Step Into Liquid (2003)
Stevie (2003)
The End (2004)
Let the Church Say Amen (2004)
What the Bleep Do We Know!? (2004)
Word Wars (2004)
12 Ordinary Men (2005)
Grizzly Man (2005)
Rize (2005)
Deliver Us from Evil (2006)
In Search of Mozart (2006)
Jonestown: Paradise Lost (2006)
Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man (2006)
The Rape of Europa (2006)
Wake Up and Get Healthy (2006)
Certifiably Jonathan (2007)
In the Shadow of the Moon (2007)
The Secret (2007)
Skid Row (2007)
America the Beautiful (2008)
Boogie Man: The Lee Altwater Story (2008)
Crips and Bloods: Made in America (2008)
Food Fight (2008)
Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio (2008)
How to Cook Your Life (2008)
The Human Experience (2008)
Know Your Mushrooms (2008)
The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg (2008)
Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell (2008)
Beer Wars (2009)
The Cartel (2009)
Cropsey (2009)
Fresh (2009)
How to Live Forever (2009)
Loose Change (2009)
My Dog: An Unconditional Love Story (2009)
The Night James Brown Saved Boston (2009)
Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue (2009)
Reel Injun (2009)
The September Issue (2009)
Soundtrack for a Revolution (2009)
Tapped (2009)
Transcendent Man (2009)
Under Our Skin (2009)
American Grindhouse (2010)
Carbon Nation (2010)
Cool It (2010)
Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead (2010)
Gasland (2010)
Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould (2010)
Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story (2010)
The Lottery (2010)
Tupac Uncensored and Uncut: The Lost Prison Tapes (2010)
Who Is Harry Nilsson? (2010)
5 Broken Cameras (2011)
American: The Bill Hicks Story (2011)
Bag It (2011)
Blank City (2011)
Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope (2011)
Crazy Wisdom: The Life and Times of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche (2011)
Erasing Hate (2011)
Hell and Back Again (2011)
Homeless in Los Angeles (2011)
How to Die in Oregon (2011)
Kumare (2011)
The Look (2011)
The Loving Story (2011)
My Reincarnation (2011)
You’ve Been Trumped (2011)
2016: Obama’s America (2012)
Char-ac-ter (2012)
Craigslist Joe (2012)
The Decade You Were Born: The 1940’s (2012)
The Decade You Were Born: The 1950’s (2012)
The Decade You Were Born: The 1960’s (2012)
The Decade You Were Born: The 1970’s (2012)
The Decade You Were Born: The 1980’s (2012)
Dinotasia (2012)
The Fourth World (2012)
Harry Belafonte: Sing Your Song (2012)
Head Games (2012)
The House I Live In (2012)
The Imposter (2012)
The Joffrey Ballet: The Mavericks of American Dance (2012)
Last Will & Testament (2012)
Money and Medicine (2012)
Of Two Minds (2012)
The Revisionaries (2012)
Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir (2012)
Shut Up and Play the Hits (2012)
Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap (2012)
The Source Family (2012)
That Gal Who Was In That Thing (2012)
That Guy Who Was in That Thing (2012)
They Call It Myanmar (2012)
Undaunted: The Forgotten Giants of the Allegheny Observatory (2012)
The Waiting Room (2012)
The Woman Who Wasn’t There (2012)
$ellebrity (2013)
American Addict (2013)
Blood Brother (2013)
Burning Man: Beyond Black Rock (2013)
Desert Runners (2013)
Our Nixon (2013)
The Overnighters (2013)
Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out (2013)
Sound City (2013)
Stolen Seas (2013)
Tales From The Organ Trade (2013)
The Unbelievers (2013)
Visitors (2013)
20,000 Days On Earth (2014)
21 Years: Richard Linklater (2014)
As the Palaces Burn (2014)
Bending the Light (2014)
Children of the Light (2014)
Dsknectd (2014)
Kidnapped for Christ (2014)
Kindness Is Contagious (2014)
Love Me (2014)
Neurons to Nirvana (2014)
One Little Pill (2014)
Women Aren’t Funny (2014)
Being Evel (2015)
The Damned: Don’t You Wish That We Were Dead (2015)
Dennis Rodman’s Big Bang in Pyongyang (2015)
Dukale’s Dream (2015)
Gameplay: The Story of the Videogame Revolution (2015)
Living the Fantasy (2015)
Mindfulness: Be Happy Now (2015)
Origins (2015)
Plastic Galaxy (2015)
The Primary Instinct (2015)
Searching for Home: Coming Back from War (2015)
Why I’m Not On Facebook (2015)
1 Nation Under Trump (2016)
7 Days in Syria (2016)
Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party (2016)
Mexico’s Bravest Man (2016)
Without a Scalpel (2016)

FREE ACTION MOVIES:

C.C. and Company (1970)
Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970)
The McKenzie Break (1970)
Chato’s Land (1972)
Black Mama, White Mama (1973)
The Doll Squad (1973)
High Crime (1973)
Revolver (1973)
Foxy Brown (1974)
Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)
Juggernaut (1974)
The Street Fighter (1974)
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
Bucktown, U.S.A. (1975)
Death Race 2000 (1975)
Four of the Apocalypse (1975)
Friday Foster (1975)
Sheba, Baby (1975)
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
Good Guys Wear Black (1977)
Circle of Iron (1978)
Convoy (1978)
A Force of One (1979)
The Big Brawl (1980)
The Final Countdown (1980)
Death Wish 2 (1982)
Fire & Ice (1983)
Lone Wolf McQuade (1983)
The Toughest Man in the World (1983)
Dreamscape (1984)
The Protector (1985)
8 Million Ways to Die (1986)
Raw Deal (1986)
The Wraith (1986)
Police Story (1987)
Police Story 2 (1988)
Samurai Cop (1991)
Posse (1992)
Sonatine (1992)
Crime Story (1993)
Public Access (1993)
East Meets West (1995)
Belly (1998)
Antitrust (2001)
Agent Cody Banks (2003)
Dark Blue (2003)
Saints and Soldiers (2003)
Stander (2003)
Lady Vengeance (2005)
Modus Operandi (2009)
Haywire (2012)
The Grandmaster (2013)
The Last Stand (2013)
Snitch (2013)

FREE CLASSIC MOVIES:

Giorgio Moroder Presents Metropolis (1927)
Abraham Lincoln (1930)
Nothing Sacred (1937)
Pygmalion (1938)
Stagecoach (1939)
Ball of Fire (1940)
Foreign Correspondent (1940)
His Girl Friday (1940)
The Little Foxes (1941)
Penny Serenade (1941)
I Married a Witch (1942)
To Be or Not to Be (1942)
A Night in Casablanca (1946)
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
The Stranger (1946)
Great Expectations (1947)
Life with Father (1947)
Cyrano De Bergerac (1950)
Beat the Devil (1953)
Dial M for Murder (1954)
Not as a Stranger (1955)
The Killing (1956)
Moby Dick (1956)
12 Angry Men (1957)
Legend of the Lost (1957)
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
I Want to Live! (1958)
Man of the West (1958)
Paths of Glory (1958)
The Vikings (1958)
The Bat (1959)
Day of the Outlaw (1959)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)
Pork Chop Hill (1959)
Solomon and Sheba (1959)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Ten Seconds to Hell (1959)
The Apartment (1960)
Elmer Gantry (1960)
Exodus (1960)
The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)
One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
Geronimo (1962)
The Miracle Worker (1962)
Billy Liar (1963)
Contempt (1963)
Irma La Douce (1963)
Charade (1964)
Kings of the Sun (1964)
Marriage Italian Style (1964)
The Naked Kiss (1964)
The Secret Invasion (1964)
A Shot in the Dark (1964)
Darling (1965)
The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
Othello (1965)
The Train (1965)
What’s New Pussycat? (1965)
Duel at Diablo (1966)
Hawaii (1966)
The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966)
What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (1966)
Casino Royale (1967)
Hour of the Gun (1967)
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967)
Candy (1968)
The Devil’s Brigade (1968)
The Milky Way (1968)
The Party (1968)

FREE COMEDY MOVIES:

Hercules in New York (1970)
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)
Where’s Poppa? (1970)
The Hospital (1971)
Avanti! (1972)
Discreet Charm of the Bourgeosie (1972)
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972)
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)
Love and Death (1975)
The Return of the Pink Panther (1975)
From Noon till Three (1976)
Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)
Sextette (1978)
La Cage aux Folles (1979)
Hopscotch (1980)
A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy (1982)
Trail of the Pink Panther (1982)
Curse of the Pink Panther (1983)
All of Me (1984)
Garbo Talks (1984)
The Compleat Al (1985)
Teen Wolf (1985)
Baby Boom (1986)
Crimes of the Heart (1986)
Fatal Beauty (1987)
From the Hip (1987)
Salome’s Last Dance (1987)
Teen Wolf Too (1987)
Throw Momma from the Train (1987)
Bagdad Café (1988)
Johnny Be Good (1988)
Little Monsters (1988)
Tapeheads (1988)
All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)
Dream a Little Dream (1989)
Meet the Feebles (1989)
She-Devil (1989)
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990)
Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)
Life Stinks (1991)
The Wedding Banquet (1993)
Getting Even with Dad (1994)
Smoke (1994)
Jeffrey (1995)
Swimming With Sharks (1995)
Citizen Ruth (1996)
Trees Lounge (1996)
Suicide Kings (1997)
Beautiful People (1999)
Flawless (1999)
Ghost World (2000)
Bartleby (2001)
Igby Goes Down (2002)
Roger Dodger (2002)
Bubba Ho-Tep (2003)
Buffalo Soldiers (2003)
Delirious (2006)
An American Carol (2007)
Death at a Funeral (2007)
Visioneers (2008)
Casino Jack (2010)
Dark Horse (2012)
Much Ado About Nothing (2012)
Quartet (2012)
It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2014)
They Came Together (2014)
What We Did on Our Holiday (2014)

FREE DRAMA MOVIES:

The Hawaiians (1970)
Kes (1970)
They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970)
Wuthering Heights (1970)
Doc (1971)
The Hunting Party (1971)
Boxcar Bertha (1972)
The Ruling Class (1972)
The Long Goodbye (1973)
Paper Moon (1973)
Lenny (1974)
Where the Red Fern Grows (1974)
Arabian Nights (1975)
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1975)
Mikey and Nicky (1976)
The Return of a Man Called Horse (1976)
Stay Hungry (1976)
Welcome to L.A. (1976)
Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1977)
The Getting of Wisdom (1977)
Stroszek (1977)
Why Shoot the Teacher? (1977)
Comes a Horseman (1978)
Interiors (1978)
Who’ll Stop the Rain (1978)
Quadrophenia (1979)
The Tempest (1979)
Breaker Morant (1980)
The Jazz Singer (1980)
The Stunt Man (1980)
Cutter’s Way (1981)
The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981)
Heaven’s Gate (1981)
Priest of Love (1981)
True Confessions (1981)
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Frances (1982)
The Secret of NIMH (1982)
Gorky Park (1983)
The Care Bears Movie (1984)
Death of a Salesman (1985)
My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)
Nutcracker: The Motion Picture (1986)
The Big Easy (1987)
House Of Games (1987)
Russkies (1987)
September (1987)
Another Woman (1988)
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1988)
Mississippi Burning (1988)
Stormy Monday (1988)
Chattahoochee (1989)
Henry V (1989)
Jacknife (1989)
Triumph of the Spirit (1989)
The Hot Spot (1990)
Prisoner of Honor (1990)
Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll (1990)
Stanley & Iris (1990)
Vincent and Theo (1990)
Johnny Suede (1991)
The Man in the Moon (1991)
Rush (1991)
Zandalee (1991)
Of Mice and Men (1992)
Red Shoe Diaries: The Movie (1992)
Bitter Moon (1994)
Jason’s Lyric (1994)
Restoration (1994)
Hackers (1995)
Rob Roy (1995)
Showgirls (1995)
A Family Thing (1996)
Mrs. Brown (1996)
Mulholland Falls (1996)
Night Falls on Manhattan (1997)
Telling Lies in America (1997)
Guinevere (1998)
Last Night (1998)
Live Flesh (1998)
Niagara, Niagara (1998)
Slam (1998)
New Rose Hotel (1999)
The Widow of Saint-Pierre (1999)
Chuck and Buck (2000)
Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000)
Hamlet (2000)
Panic (2000)
Tape (2000)
The Center of the World (2001)
Max (2001)
Mondays in the Sun (2001)
The Barbarian Invasions (2002)
The Best of Youth (2002)
Heaven (2002)
Nicholas Nickleby (2002)
Personal Velocity (2002)
Dogville (2003)
Crash (2004)
Akeelah and the Bee (2006)
Art School Confidential (2006)
Feast of Love (2006)
City of Men (2007)
Starting Out in the Evening (2007)
XXY (2007)
Sita Sings the Blues (2008)
Brothers (2009)
Dogtooth (2009)
Fish Tank (2009)
A Single Man (2009)
Norwegian Wood (2010)
Solitary Man (2010)
50/50 (2011)
A Better Life (2011)
Bullhead (2011)
Coriolanus (2011)
Film Socialisme (2011)
After Porn Ends (2012)
The Flowers Of War (2012)
Holy Motors (2012)
Lawless (2012)
Mood Indigo (2012)
All Is Lost (2013)
Blue Ruin (2013)
A Field in England (2013)
Cesar Chavez (2014)
God’s Not Dead (2014)
Joe (2014)

FREE HORROR MOVIES:

A Bucket of Blood (1959)
Black Sunday (1960)
The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
Black Sabbath (1963)
Blood Feast (1965)
Spider Baby (1967)
The Shiver of the Vampires (1971)
Baron Blood (1972)
Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (1972)
Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972)
Deep Red (1975)
Alice, Sweet Alice (1976)
Audrey Rose (1977)
The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977)
Suspiria (1977)
The Driller Killer (1979)
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Motel Hell (1980)
Q: The Winged Serpent (1982)
Sleepaway Camp (1983)
Phenomena (1985)
The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
The Gate (1986)
Gothic (1986)
Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)
Bad Taste (1987)
Dolls (1987)
Night of the Demons (1988)
Class of 1999 (1990)
Nightbreed (1990)
Two Evil Eyes (1990)
Body Bags (1993)
Bruiser (2000)
Shadow of the Vampire (2000)
Teeth (2007)

FREE THRILLER MOVIES:

A Boy and His Dog (1975)
Wanted: Babysitter (1975)
Ms. 45 (1981)
Still of the Night (1982)
The Bedroom Window (1987)
No Way Out (1987)
A Prayer for the Dying (1987)
Heart of Midnight (1988)
Desperate Hours (1990)
Albino Alligator (1997)
Cube (1997)
Insomnia (1997)
Red Corner (1997)
Bully (2001)
Infernal Affairs (2001)
Irreversible (2002)
Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance (2002)
Gozu (2003)
Oldboy (2003)
Hard Candy (2005)
Triad Election (2005)
Night Moves (2014)

Lots to choose from here! Enjoy a free movie tonight!