LibGuides: American Studies: Getting Started

Librarian for Cultural Studies, Literary Analysis and Writing

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Milstein 311. Working remotely most Mondays and Tuesdays usually on campus W, Th, Fri

Subjects: Africana Studies, American Studies, Anthropology, Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures, Comparative Literature, English, First-Year Writing, French, Italian, Spanish and Latin American Cultures

About this Guide

In this guide, you'll find resources to help you with your research in American Studies:

Resources to find background information on your topic (see boxes below)
Places to find books in print and online
Databases for locating scholarly and peer reviewed journal articles
Sources and strategies for finding archival materials and other primary sources
Databases and other places to locate historical and current newspapers, magazines, and other media coverage
Resources for citing your sources and writing in American Studies
Guidelines for getting required course texts for free via the Library

As American Studies is a deeply interdisciplinary field, I recommend referencing research guides in other subject areas depending on your methodological approaches and disciplinary lenses. See also Columbia Library's American History and American Studies guide. For guides relating to a specific class, see the library website.

Image: Four people sitting around campfire on Alcatraz Island during Native American Indian occupation, 1969; Los Angeles Times Photograph Collection; UCLA digital collections.

General Reference Resources for American Studies

CLIO Articles
Searches a large database of mostly full-text journals, encyclopedia and newspaper articles; this database also includes e-books and government documents. To select only encyclopedia and other reference articles, select "Reference" under Content Type in the left facets menu. This is a great starting place to find background information on a topic, person, group, event, or place.
Oxford Reference Library
Full text of over 100 reference titles published by Oxford University Press--search across multiple dictionaries, companions, and encyclopedias at once, including the Oxford Companion to United States History, the Oxford encyclopedia of food and drink in America, and many more.
Oxford African American Studies Center
Comprehensive collection of scholarship focused on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture, coupled with precise search and browse capabilities. Features over 7,500 articles from Oxford's reference works, approximately 100 primary sources with specially written commentaries, over 1,000 images, over 100 maps, over 200 charts and tables, timelines to guide researchers through the history of African Americans and over 6,000 biographies.
Oxford Bibliographies Online
Offers peer-reviewed annotated bibliographies on specific topics in a variety of subject areas. This is a good place to start for getting grounded in a field, finding key theoretical and other foundational texts, and building a list of sources to consult.
Gale eBooks
Gale Virtual Reference Library is a database of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research.