Literature Subject Guide

The study of literature spans linguistic, disciplinary, and geopolitical lines while encompassing a broad range of cultural products: film, electronic media, popular and material culture, as well as more traditional forms of oral and printed textual production. This guide provides a brief introduction to McHenry Library's collection of print and electronic resources in literary and cultural theory, analysis, and interpretation. If you have questions or would like research assistance, please ask at the McHenry Reference Desk or use our Ask A Librarian service (http://library.ucsc.edu/info/askalibrarian.html).

Encyclopedias, dictionaries and handbooks are excellent resources for gaining an overview of an unfamiliar subject. Entries in these sources explain concepts, terminology, points of view, and offer historical perspective. The library holds many more relevant titles than those listed here, so browsing the shelves near these resources can be very helpful.

Critical Keywords on Literary and Cultural Theory (Location: McH Ref PN44.5.W64 2004)
Offers introductions, questions for consideration, and recommendations for further reading on terms, concepts, and motifs prevalent in literary and cultural theory.

Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms ( McH Ref PN41.C67 2004-- Also available electronically via Oxford Reference Online)
Contains brief definitions, pronunciation, and reading recommendations for over 1,000 literary terms.

Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism (McH Ref Desk PN81.J55 2005)
Features cross-referenced, lengthy entries with extensive source lists on concepts, theories, people, groups, and movements concerned with the history and development of criticism.

Contemporary Authors (McH Ref Z1224.C6-- Also available electronically via LRC)
Provides information on current writers in fiction, general nonfiction, poetry, journalism, drama, film, television, and other fields, as well as early twentieth century authors whose works continue to elicit critical attention.

Contemporary Literary Criticism (McH Ref Tables PN771.C62 [Table 8]-- Also available electronically via LRC)
Includes significant excerpts from published criticism of novelists, poets, playwrights, short story writers, filmmakers, and other creative writers who are currently living or who died after 1959.

Dictionary of Literary Biography (McH Ref PN141.D5-- Also available electronically via LRC)
Volumes organized by topic, period, or genre provide career biographies and bibliographic overviews of authors, historians, journalists, publishers, book collectors, and screenwriters.

Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800 (McH Ref PN86.L56-- Also available electronically via LRC)
Offers a representative selection of critical discussion of world literature, including novels, drama, personal essays, journalism, poetry, and philosophy from the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries. Each entry focuses on a single author, a literary topic, or a single important work.

Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism (McH Ref PN761.N5-- Also available electronically via LRC)
Includes excerpts from criticism of the works of novelists, poets, playwrights, short story writers, philosophers, and other creative writers who died between 1800 and 1899, from the first published critical appraisals to current evaluations.

Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism (McH Ref Tables PN771.T96 [Tables 7 and 8]-- Also available electronically via LRC)
Provides criticism of the works of novelists, poets, playwrights, short story writers, and other creative writers who lived between 1900 and 1999, from the first published critical appraisals to current evaluations.

Encyclopedia of World Literature in the Twentieth Century (McH Ref PN774.L433 1999)
Offers a broad survey of significant literary activity of international scope throughout the twentieth century. Emphasis is on the work of authors who have limited access to English-speaking audiences.

Latino and Latina Writers (McH Ref PS153.H56 L39 2004)
Provides an introduction to major works by Latino and Latina writers. Main-- but not exclusive-- emphasis is on works written in English and published after 1960.

Oxford Companion to African American Literature (McH Ref PS153.N5 O96 1997-- Also available electronically via Oxford Reference Online)
Offers brief entries and source lists on the texts, authors, terms, and historical and cultural contexts of African American literature.

Encyclopedia of Feminist Literary Theory (McH Ref PN98.W64 E53 1997)
Provides brief entries and bibliographies on keywords, topics, names, and critical terminology pertinent to the field of feminist literary theory.

Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies (McH Ref PN849.U43 E53 2001)
Includes cross-referenced entries of varying lengths describing topics and individuals central to the discussion of post-colonial studies, as well as an extensive bibliography.

Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English (McH Ref PR9080.A52 E53 2005)
Contains brief entries on genres, major subjects, authors, countries, and regions "affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day."

NOTE: Along with general literature resources, the Reference Collection contains a vast array of materials specific to the literatures of every country, numerous racial and ethnic groups and under-represented populations, as well as various genres (science fiction, crime, romance, and many more).

Infotrac Expanded Academic ASAP
Contains citations for articles in popular magazines and scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and general sciences. Legal, business, and health journals are also included. Many records have abstracts and full text. Subject areas: general subjects, humanities, art, science and engineering, social sciences. Covers: 1980 - present.

Literature Resource Center (LRC) from Gale
Provides full-text access to biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of authors from classical antiquity to the present. Subjects include novelists, poets, essayists, journalists, and other writers.

LION - Literature Online
Offers a searchable library of poetry, prose, drama, literary reference texts, and author biographies. Contains the full-text of over 260,000 works.

MLA Bibliography Database from CSA
Contains citations for articles, books, and book chapters in literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore. Compiled by the Modern Language Association. Covers: 1963 - present

ABELL - Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature, 1920-
The Modern Humanities Research Association's Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature is a searchable database of citations of monographs, journal articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews, collections of essays, and dissertations. MHRA's ABELL includes links to the full text of 61 journals. Covers: 1920-present.

FRANCIS
Provides citations to works on religion, the history of art, social sciences, economics, and literature. French database, searchable in French and English. Abstracts are in the same language as the cited resource. Covers: 1984 - present.

Chicano Database
Citations to articles in art, language, sociology, economics, history, literature, and politics of Mexican-American and Latino cultures. Abstracts are not available. Covers: 1967 - present.

JSTOR
A searchable database containing the full-text of back issues of more than 160 academic journals. Coverage: Archival. Latest three years are not available.

Project Muse
This searchable database contains online access to the full-text of over 100 scholarly journals in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and mathematics. Coverage varies.

Periodical Archives Online (PAO)
This searchable database contains citations for articles in over 350 periodicals in the humanities and social sciences. Full text is available for all articles. Formerly titled PCI Full Text. Covers: 1770 - 1995.

The

icon in most online databases will lead you to the text of journal articles. UC-eLinks will provide links to online text when available, the call numbers for print copies of journals, and forms for requesting items through interlibrary loan if UCSC doesn't own the journal. See the UC-eLinks Guide (http://library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/elinks.html) for more information.

Periodicals at McHenry Library are located as follows: Current issues are shelved on the first floor by call number; back issues are bound by volume/year and are shelved in the stacks, also by call number. Many journals are also available online via article databases and can be accessed by journal title in CRUZCAT.

American Literature; A Journal of Literary History, Criticism and Bibliography (McH PS1.A6)

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture: A WWWeb Journal (Electronic Resource)

CRUZCAT (http://cruzcat.ucsc.edu) is UCSC's Online Library Catalog. It includes books, periodicals, maps, videos, government publications, CDs, music scores, and more materials located in both McHenry and the Science and Engineering Library. CRUZCAT does not include the text of journal articles.

TIP: If you're unfamiliar with subject searching, try a keyword search and select a useful book record from the results. In the record click a subject to see more books on that topic.

The following are examples of ways to search using literature-related subjects:

By work: Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Twelfth night.	By person: Stein, Gertrude Baldwin, James
By genre: Science Fiction Satire Horror Tales, American -- History And Criticism	General topics: Fiction -- 19th Century -- History And Criticism Ethnicity In Literature Bible -- In Literature Novelists, American -- 20th Century -- Interviews

Voice of the Shuttle (http://vos.ucsb.edu/)
Provides a structured and briefly annotated guide to online resources that at once respects the established humanities disciplines in their professional organization and points toward the transformation of those disciplines as they interact with the sciences and social sciences and with new digital media.

How to use the MLA style guide (http://library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/mla_citations.html)
UCSC's guide to citing in the MLA (Modern Language Association) style