Let's look at some of the online streaming videos available through the library, in this walk-through of Women's History Month titles from Films on Demand.  Films on Demand is a free streaming service which provides great documentaries to our community.   To watch more films like these titles, check out Films on Demand.

Women First and Foremost:  Hosted by Academy Award-winner Rita Moreno and Dee Wallace Stone, Women First & Foremost offers shining examples of how generations of women have achieved their deserved place at the forefront of history.  Brief sketches of notable women, such as Phillis Wheatley, Anne Bradstreet, Margaret Fuller, and Ruth Hale, are presented as a means to view cultural and social contributions, reform work, and political activity.

Lives Together, Worlds Apart:  Drawing on case studies, this program exposes the "gender apartheid" that has led to the marginalization of women around the world through violence and poverty. Commentary by Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the UN; Festus Mogae, president of Botswana; and Margaret Jay, Britain’s minister for women, as well as by many grassroots leaders reveals the victimization that is occurring through educational neglect, unfair labor practices, spouse abuse, and inadequate reproductive healthcare. The positive effects of rural empowerment programs, battered women refuges, and free health and legal counseling are also presented—but will cuts in funding sweep away the good that these initiatives have done?

What I Want My Words to Do to You: In this classic program from the POV series, playwright Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues) leads 15 female inmates—most convicted of murder—through a series of exercises and intimate discussions, enabling them to delve into and expose their most terrifying realities as they grapple with the nature of their crimes and their own culpability. The documentary culminates in an emotionally charged prison performance of the inmates’ writings by acclaimed actors Mary Alice, Marisa Tomei, Glenn Close, Rosie Perez, and Hazelle Goodman.

The Kingdom of Women: In a remote corner of southwestern China are the Mosuo, arguably the best remaining example of a matrilineal society in the world today. In this program, anthropologist Chou Wah-Shan—one of few outside scholars who have lived and worked extensively with the Mosuo—and Mosuo villagers offer insights into what life is like in the 91 communities where women rule and husbands don’t exist.

Chile: From Drama to Hope:  This program examines Chile under martyred socialist President Salvador Allende, and the subsequent Pinochet regime that followed. Allende’s niece and novelist, Isabel Allende, exile Hortensia Bussi, Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriela Mistral, and others discuss women’s role in the eventual toppling of Pinochet, and the formation of the Latin American Federation of Associations of Families of Prisoners Missing Since 1981—a tracking organization that helps families discover the fate of relatives kidnapped during the Pinochet reign of terror.  The mothers, sisters, and daughters of "the disappeared" were instrumental in bringing the regime's horrors to international recognition.

The feast day of March 17 has been designated for Saint Patrick, a real person and church leader who concentrated on converting 5th Century western Ireland to Christianity.   Following his birth in Roman Britain, the young son of a church deacon was staying at his father's country estate in western Britain when he was kidnapped and forcibly enslaved for six years as a Irish shepherd.   For the worldly youth that he had been, though a nominal Christian, captivity became a means of spiritual conversion.  He escaped and went back into the priesthood in Europe, eventually rising to the second Bishop of Ireland as appointed by the pope, concentrating his roving conversion on western and northern Ireland. 

A desire to preach the Christian faith to the Irish grew within him to the certainty of a vocation. Once in a dream he even heard the "voice of the Irish" calling him back.  The Druids fought him bitterly.  He set up the first monasteries in European Episcopal style in Ireland, and he also raged against British clergy, who wanted to continue selling the Irish priests into servitude.  At one point, he fought with British Prince Coroticus, who during a retaliatory raid on Ireland had killed some of Patrick's converts and sold others into slavery.   Patrick showed his identification with the Irish in his phrase "we are Irish." As the bishop of the Irish Christians, he defended them with every ounce of his spiritual power, even if it meant defying a powerful military leader of his own ethnic background. To his critics Patrick replied with his Confessio, written in his old age.

Hundreds of years after his death, Muirchu's account of Saint Patrick's life introduced apocryphal stories about New Testament apostles. Muirchu retold episodes from stories about Bartholemew, Peter, James (the brother of John) and Saint John the Evangelist with St. Patrick as their central character. The canonization of the real monk had begun.  it is noteworthy that he draws attention to this activity as an important element of Patrick's impact on the Irish people.   Stories like the Easter fire and banishing the snakes from Ireland begin to develop details never seen in Patrick's writings.  Christianity began to develop Patrick into a legendary folk hero.   Over time, Patrick became known as the greatest of Ireland's missionaries and its national apostle. 

As the ideas, beliefs, and traditions of Christianity spread from one people to another, they are shaped--and reshaped--by the culture of each new group.  Nowhere is this more true than of the legend that grew around Saint Patrick -- a Briton who was enslaved by the Irish, who escaped his captors, then returned to the Irish with a fervent mission to convert them.  It was on the shores of a far-off land that Patrick truly became a symbol of community and continuity.  By mid 18th century,  Irish soldiers serving in the colonial British Army marched through the streets of New York City accompanied by Irish music. When a massive famine struck Ireland in the 19th century, and millions of Irish emigrated to a new world where they were subjected to discrimination, they remembered their patron saint as an ex-slave who broke down barriers, a story of purification and triumph after suffering.  

By the early 20th century, St. Patrick's Day parades in major American cities had become triumphant celebrations of Irish "arrival" in the hallowed halls of city government--victors over the old guard Protestant Yankees.  The importance of St. Patrick to growing Irish self-confidence was expressed in 1921 by Seumas MacManus, author of the sentimental favorite Story of the Irish Race, know for transforming traditional Irish folktales into modern ones: "What Confucius was to the Oriental, Moses to the Israelite, Mohammed to the Arab, Patrick was to the Gaelic race. And the name and power of those other great ones will not outlive the name and the power of our Apostle." 

Today the U.S. celebration of the feast day is the jewel of Saint Patrick's Day, two hundred years after a massive immigrant movement brought its patron saint to the continent.  Now new classes of immigrants embrace the "kiss me, I'm Irish" sentiment as a way to establish cultural acceptance and integration.   All from a Briton, enslaved for years, who later transformed his adopted homeland... Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

It is hard to believe half of the semester is already over and so is spring break. It’s time to buckle down and focus on successfully completing your courses.

If you find yourself struggling, remember the ACE is here to help, so please reach out to an ACE team member for assistance with any assignment questions you may have.

• Diana Hall at (606) 218-1201 or dhall0252@kctcs.edu
• Joseph Caldwell at (606) 886-7331 or jcaldwell0082@kctcs.edu
• Jared Daniels at (606) 788-2864 or jdaniels0129@kctcs.edu

ACE centers are in or near the libraries on the Prestonsburg, Pikeville, and Mayo campuses. If you are unable to visit the ACE in person, we are still able to assist via email, Teams, and phone interactions.

You also have the option of submitting requests using Homework Help by clicking this link: https://bigsandy.libwizard.com/f/ACEform

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