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1) The map trap
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Sixth-grader Alton Barnes loves maps, and when his portfolio of secret maps is stolen, he begins getting notes with orders that he must obey to get the maps back but, with the help of a popular classmate, he just might succeed before his teacher, principal, or someone else learns he has been studying and mapping things about them.
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At a time when speculative fiction seems less and less far-fetched, Margaret Atwood lends her distinctive voice and singular point of view to the genre in a series of essays that brilliantly illuminates the essential truths about the modern world. This is an exploration of her relationship with the literary form we have come to know as "science fiction," a relationship that has been lifelong, stretching from her days as a child reader in the 1940s,...
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Cartography may have a basis in science, but even in the hands of experts and authorities, it hasn't always resulted in balanced representations of the world. This program focuses on the map as a product of the fears, dogmas, or prejudices of its age. In one segment, an antiquated map designed to help Jewish immigrants in London ironically conveys anti-Semitism. Medieval maps created out of spiritual passion show the way to heaven, the route to Jerusalem,...
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Alfred's point of entry to China is Kashgar, in the Xinjiang region—the biggest in the country. It is home to the Uyghurs, an ethnic minority descended from Turkic peoples. At the height of trading on the Silk Road, Kashgar was a major hub for caravans travelling to India or Central Asia. Alfred visits a market, is instructed in the importance of plant ingredients in preparing medicines by a Uyghur apothecary and is invited to a Tajik wedding in...
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Maps aren't simply about getting from A to B. As this program shows, they are often condensations of a particular culture's worldview, and, as such, a map forms a revealing snapshot of a moment in history. Visiting one of humanity's earliest maps, scratched into the rocks of an alpine hillside 3,000 years ago, the film goes on to illustrate how each culture develops its own unique and surprising way of mapping. Examples include Henry VIII's stunning...
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Sparking awareness of distant lands, maps have likewise tempted the ambitious to pillage and conquer through the centuries. This program examines cartography's role in a disturbing dynamic-that which spans the urge to discover for discovery's sake and the relentless drive to extend power, reap faraway resources, and satisfy greed. Profiling the father of geography, Claudius Ptolemy, and his ideas for transferring spherical configurations to a flat...
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Any study of Planet Earth, with its surface area of approximately 200 million square miles, will obviously have a lot of ground to cover! Using high-quality film footage and detailed animations, this collection of 49 video clips (30 seconds to 2 minutes each) examines the history of Earth, the structure of Earth, tectonics and volcanism, water and the oceans, the evolution of landscapes, the representation of Earth, and the continents. Video clips...
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Amber Tamblyn, Jessica Valenti, Lidia Yuknavitch, Jia Tolentino, Samantha Irby, Meredith Talusan, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Amy Poehler, America Ferrera, Ada Limón, and Huma Abedin are among the impressive list of authors contributing to this powerful collection of essays that takes a fresh and powerful look at our relationship to intuition and how we can harness it to change our everyday lives and the world. For generations, women have been...