Subject Specialist Librarian
Context
Putting an Author or Work in Context
Learning more about the time period, social life, culture, surrounding an author or work can help understand the context in which it was created. These resources provide access to resources like timelines, primary source documents, images and more that may increase your understanding of a work.
- African American Experience This link opens in a new windowAn online collection on African American life, The African American Experience is an electronic research tool for African American history and culture. The two primary goals: to provide rock-solid information from authorities in the field, and to allow African Americans to speak for themselves through a wealth of primary sources. Designed under the guidance of leading librarians, this database gives voice to the black experience from its African origins to the present day.
- Oxford African American Studies Center This link opens in a new windowThe Oxford African American Studies Center is a comprehensive collection of scholarship available online to focus on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture.
- African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 This link opens in a new windowAfrican American Newspapers, Series 1, 1827-1998, provides online access to 280 U.S. newspapers chronicling a century and a half of the African American experience. This unique collection, which includes papers from more than 35 states, features many rare and historically significant 19th-century titles.
Databases
Scholarly Articles in the Arts & Humanities
In the sciences, scholarly articles usually are reporting on scientific experiments or research that includes some type of data analysis, and they follow a specific format. Articles written by arts and humanities scholars may appear more like essays, and will not have a standard format.
A scholarly article in the Arts or Humanities will include the author's name and their professional affiliation at the beginning of the article and a significant number of footnotes or references. These may include primary and secondary sources.
Here is an example of a scholarly journal article that provides critical analysis of an author:
To Be(come) Young, Gay, and Black: Lorraine Hansberry's Existentialist Routes to Anticolonialism
- Scholarly Articles in the HumanitiesReview the following to understand how to identify a scholarly article in the arts or humanities.
Reading Other Scholar's Writings About Literature
You can find scholarly articles that discuss themes, authors and their works in library databases. These articles are written by scholars and researchers and are published in a variety of scholarly, peer-reviewed journals that have names like Modernist Cultures or African American Review. We use library databases to search for them using key terms and concepts.
Key Words and Concepts
An easy way to start your search is with the author's name and work. To find more articles on more specific topics, consider searching the author's name or work along with one of the following thematic terms, or one you develop from your reading of the author's original work.
| assertiveness | ideology | spirituality |
| beauty | musicality | violence |
| blues | protest | virtue |
| education | rebellion | working class |
| humanness | reparations | |
| identity | slavery |
Library Databases
Following are three library databases that are recommended for locating literary research articles.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new windowMLA BIBLIOGRAPHY (online) is the largest and most comprehensive database covering current scholarship in the modern languages, literatures, and folklore. MLA BIBLIOGRAPHY (online) corresponds to the printed annual bibliography of the Modern Language Association.
- Web of Science This link opens in a new windowThis database is an online version of the ISI indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index from 1975-. A search can be limited to one index (i.e. Science Citation Index OR Social Science Citation Index).
Other Resources, Including Primary Sources
- ProQuest History Vault This link opens in a new windowPrimary source materials from its University Publications of America (UPA) Collection in a digital format. ProQuest History Vault unlocks the wealth of archival materials with a single search. Researchers can access letters, papers, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, diaries, and much more from a single interface.
- Digital SchomburgThe Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is located in Harlem, New York, and is a research unit of The New York Public Library system. Digital Schomburg includes exhibitions, books, articles, photographs, prints, audio and video streams. Explore their Online Exhibitions.
- Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)Many universities, public libraries, and other public-spirited organizations have digitized materials, but these digital collections often exist in silos. The DPLA brings these different viewpoints, experiences, and collections together in a single platform and portal, providing open and coherent access to our society’s digitized cultural heritage.
- DPLA Activism in the USSpecial collections in DPLA related to civil rights and other social activist movements.
- Dodge Revolutionary Workers Movement (DRUM)The Reuther Library at Wayne State University developed this information page on DRUM as part of its 12th Street Detroit online exhibit.