LibGuides: ENGL 3927: Senior Seminar: Nineteenth Century American Women Writers: Home

About This Guide

In this guide, you'll find resources and strategies you can use as you conduct research for the English Senior Seminar: Nineteenth Century Women Writers.

Resources to research background and contextual information on your topic and the approaches you might be bringing to your research (see links below)
Strategies and tools for finding nineteenth century texts
Strategies and tools for finding scholarly books
Strategies and tools for finding scholarly articles
Resources for citing your sources
Updated information on remote library services available via Barnard, Columbia, and other libraries
Guidelines for getting required course texts for free via the Library

Please feel free to book an appointment with me on my calendar page, for further support with your research!

Images:

on left: Gilbert Studios, Washington D.C. (restored by Adam Cuerden). Only known formal photograph of Harriet Jacobs (1894). Via Wikipedia. Public domain.

on right: Photographer unnamed. Portrait of Sarah Winnemucca. Via Wikipedia. Public domain.

Finding Search Terms

Before you start searching, it can be useful to start a (perpetually living and growing) list of key words and phrases that are important to your research. This list can include:

names of people (historical figures and/or characters in texts)
names of places
historical moments
themes/motifs in a text
theoretical frameworks you want to apply
theoretical frameworks you want to critique
and more

LINK TO OUR GROUP KEYWORD CLOUD

Keyword Concept Map
A diagram you can use to create a concept map, which you can use to develop search terms (via Claremont College Libraries)

Reference Sources

You might wish to consult reference sources to research backgrounds and contexts, to learn about how "facts" have been constructed and challenged, to get familiar with specialized language and terms, and /or to find recommended readings to deepen your knowledge around an area of research (for the latter, look to bibliographies and works cited lists!)

Black Women in America by Darlene Clark Hine (Editor)
ISBN: 9780195156775
Publication Date: 2005
Includes nearly 600 entries, biographical and thematic, on the histories of Black women in the United States. Entries include bibliographies with relevant sources for further research.

Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete Online
Provides biographical and critical essays on the lives, works, and careers of influential literary figures from all eras and genres.

Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism Since 1450 by Macmillan Reference
ISBN: 9780028660851
Publication Date: 2006
Provides historical background and context on histories of colonialism and expansion. The work describes and analyzes the many aspects of the history of Europe's colonial and imperial presence and violence in Americas, Asia, Africa and the Pacific, beginning in the 15th century, and the building and collapse of empires (Spanish, Portuguese, British, French, Dutch, German, American). A number of the more than 400 articles in the set address the ideology and theories behind colonialism and imperialism.
Encyclopedia of Women and American Politics by Lynne E. Ford
ISBN: 9781438141879
Publication Date: 2014
contains hundreds of entries covering people, events, and terms involved in the history of women and politics.
Keywords for African American Studies by Erica R. Edwards (Editor); Roderick A. Ferguson (Editor); Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar (Editor)
ISBN: 9781479852833
Publication Date: 2018
This volume assembles keywords of African American Studies, exploring not only the history of those categories but their continued relevance in the contemporary moment. Taking up a vast array of issues such as slavery, colonialism, prison expansion, sexuality, gender, feminism, war, and popular culture, Keywords for African American Studies showcases the startling breadth that characterizes the field. With contributors across the social sciences and the humanities.
Keywords for American Cultural Studies by Bruce Burgett (Editor); Glenn Hendler (Editor)
ISBN: 9780814725313
Publication Date: 2014-12-19
A resource for understanding key terms and debates in the fields of American studies and cultural studies. Designed as a print-digital hybrid publication this book collects more than 90 essays from interdisciplinary scholars, each on a single term such as "America," "culture," "law," and "religion." The publication brings together essays by scholars working in literary studies and political economy, cultural anthropology and ethnic studies, African American history and performance studies, gender studies and political theory.
Native Studies Keywords by Stephanie Nohelani Teves (Editor); Andrea Smith (Editor); Michelle Raheja (Editor)
ISBN: 9780816531509
Publication Date: 2015-05-21
This is an edited volume that provides definitions, meanings, and significances of select key concepts often used in Native studies. These concepts include: sovereignty, land, indigeneity, nations, blood, tradition, colonialism, and indigenous epistemologies/knowledges. The manuscript is divided into eight sections, and each section includes three or four essays about one of the concepts. The essays provide an historical, social, and political context for the concepts and indicate how they have been drawn upon by scholars of Native studies.

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 English dictionary online (OED)
Contains entries on over 600,000 words, with definitions, etymologies, histories and examples of use traced through quotations from literature and popular texts.