Librarian for English
Reference Sources
- Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature This link opens in a new windowThe Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature contains over 400 articles and aims to map, over time, the world’s entire landscape of literary expressions and criticism, weaving together the various fields and approaches that make up literature.
Recommended E-Book Collection
Cambridge Core is the home of academic content from Cambridge University Press. Cambridge Core is the place to find valuable, useful and inspirational research and academic information. Each Cambridge Companion is a collection of introductory essays on aspects of a writer, artist, philosopher, religious thinker, cultural topic, or period. You can also find individual titles using the library's catalog, Virgo. Below are some relevant works included in this collection.
The Cambridge Companion to Richard Wright by Call Number: EbookISBN: 9781108475174Publication Date: 2019Hailed as 'the father of black literature in the twentieth century', Richard Wright was an iconoclast, an intellectual of towering stature, whose multidisciplinary erudition rivals only that of W. E. B. Du Bois. This collection captures Wright's immense power, which has made him a beacon for writers across decades, from the civil rights era to today. Individual essays examine Wright's art as central to his intellectual life and shed new light on his classic texts - Native Son and Black Boy. Other essays turn to his short fiction, and non-fiction as well as his lesser-known work in journalism and poetry, paying particular attention to manuscripts in Wright's archive - unpublished letters and novels, plans for multivolume works - that allow us to see the depth and expansiveness of his aesthetic and political vision.
Richard Wright in Context by Call Number: EbookISBN: 9781108773522Publication Date: 2021Richard Wright in Context gathers thirty-three new essays by leading scholars relating Wright's writings to biographical, regional, social, literary, and intellectual contexts essential to understanding them. It explores the places that shaped his life and enabled his literary destiny, the social and cultural contexts he both observed and immersed himself in, and the literary and intellectual contexts that made him one the most famous Black writers in the world at mid-century.
Helpful URLs
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- Using Databases Off GroundsHave questions about accessing databases from off-grounds? Find more information here.
This guide was created to help you prepare for your final research paper for ENGL 2599 and as a general guide to resources related to novels/play you're reading in class as well as authors Richard Wright, Tarell Alvin McCraney, and Jesmyn Ward
In preparation for your second essay, which requires research, you should think some about possible questions/topics of interest to start your inquiry. You will also want to spend some time thinking about how you will conduct your research.
- Fine-tune your searches.
Think broadly when brainstorming search terms. What synonyms or related terms could stand in for your key search terms?
You can combine search terms using AND ("Salvage the Bones" AND "climate change" ) and OR (violence OR cruelty OR terrorism OR savagery).
In many databases, the asterisk (*) is a truncation or "wildcard" symbol that will match all possible endings for a word stem. For example, sex* will match sexism, sexual, sexuality, sexualize, etc.
Most databases have filters or facets that allow you to narrow your results by subject, date range, etc. Limit your searches to help you find the sources you need.
- Think about where you might find the type of information you are seeking.
Will you find the research you need in an e-book? A journal article? A magazine? A newspaper? An interview? Cast a wide net when looking for the types of resources that could help answer your research question or support an argument you are making.
- Know the difference between academic and non-academic sources, and when it's appropriate to use them.
Most databases allow you to limit results to academic/scholarly/peer-reviewed sources. Be mindful of your assignment and what you're being asked to provide. Need a refresher? Watch the short video Peer Review in 3 Minutes.
- When you find a good source, use it to find other good sources.
Use the subject terms and keywords associated with an article or essay to find other articles and essays on similar topics. Scholarly essays and journal articles will have works cited, bibliographies, or footnotes you can mine for additional resources.
Need help? Ask a librarian.
Finding articles
Databases for Researching Literature and Drama (See an A-Z list of all databases)
MLA International Bibliography (MLAIB) indexes the broadest range of resources about literature in all languages, as well as film, television, and popular culture, including over 4,000 journals as well as books and dissertations. For articles not available full-text in MLA, click on “Find article @ UVa Libraries,” or look up the journal title in Virgo, the library catalog.
Humanities International Complete indexes over 2000 journals and other publications. Topics covered include archaeology, art, dance, drama, ethnic and women's studies, history, literature, music, philosophy, poetry, religion.
JSTOR includes older issues of scholarly journals in many disciplines including literature, from the start to 3-5 years ago.
Project Muse offers searchable full text of nearly 600 scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and mathematics, mostly from North American university presses. Older volumes are often available from JSTOR.
Performing Arts Periodicals Database lists articles from scholarly and popular periodicals covering dance, film, television, theater, opera, stagecraft, broadcast arts, storytelling and more. Some journals include full text.
Google Scholar is useful for finding scholarly articles, books, and websites. It can also be useful for seeing who has cited an article or essay after it was published.
Finding book essays & articles using Virgo
Virgo, the UVA Library’s primary search tool, contains catalog records for books, print journals, DVDs, maps, and digitized materials, as well as links to online articles from our rich array of subscription journals. You can search catalog materials and articles together, or view those results separately, using the facets provided to limit your results by author, format, publication period, and more. To find online content, use Filter Results By (on the left) and choose Online.
Example subject terms of possible interest:
- African American theater -- History -- 21st century
- African Americans in literature
- African Americans in the performing arts
- Ecofiction -- History and criticism
- Identity (Psychology) in literature
- Psychic trauma in literature
- Race in literature
- Violence in literature
- Working class in literature
- Wright, Richard -- 1908-1960 -- Criticism and interpretation
Example Print Books and E-Books of Interest
After August: Blues, August Wilson, and American Drama by Call Number: Ebook - Access online using link in VirgoISBN: 9780813943008Publication Date: 2019Critics have long suggested that August Wilson, who called blues "the best literature we have as black Americans," appropriated blues music for his plays. Patrick Maley argues that Wilson was not a dramatist importing blues music into his plays; he was a bluesman, expressing a blues ethos through drama. After August further contends that understanding Wilson as a bluesman demands a reinvestigation of his forebears and successors in American drama, many of whom echo his deep investment in social identity crafting.
Includes chapter: "August Wilson's Legacy and Its Limits: Worrying the Line in Katori Hall and Tarell Alvin McCraney"
Born in a Mighty Bad Land: The Violent Man in African American Folklore and Fiction by Call Number: Ebook (also available in print)ISBN: 9780253342065Publication Date: 2003A wide-ranging and illuminating look at one of the most misunderstood figures in African American story and song.
Includes chapters: "From the Forties to the Seventies Richard Wright" and "Bigger Thomas and a New Consciousness"
Contemporary Black Theatre and Performance: Acts of Rebellion, Activism, and Solidarity by Call Number: Ebook - Access online using link in VirgoISBN: 9781350252912Publication Date: 2023How are Black artists, activists, and pedagogues wielding acts of rebellion, activism, and solidarity to precipitate change? How have contemporary performances impacted Black cultural, social, and political struggles? What are the ways in which these acts and artists engage varied Black identities and explore shared histories? Contemporary Black Theatre and Performance investigates these questions to illuminate the relationship between performance, identity, intersectionality, and activism in North America and beyond.
Includes essay: "'Those Songs Were More than Just': Spirituals, Queer Reckonings, and Tarell Alvin McCraney's Choir Boy"
Literary Animal Studies and the Climate Crisis by Call Number: Ebook - Access online using link in VirgoISBN: 9783031110191Publication Date: 2022Literary Animal Studies and the Climate Crisis connects insights from the field of literary animal studies with the urgent issues of climate change and environmental degradation, and features considerations of new interventions by literature in relation to these pressing questions and debates.
Includes essay: "Bodies Tell Stories: Race, Animality, and Climate Change in Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones"
The Politics of Richard Wright:: Perspectives on Resistance by Call Number: Ebook - Access online using link in VirgoISBN: 9780813175164Publication Date: 2019In The Politics of Richard Wright, an interdisciplinary group of scholars embraces the controversies surrounding Wright as a public intellectual and author. Several contributors explore how the writer mixed fact and fiction to capture the empirical and emotional reality of living as a black person in a racist world. Others examine the role of gender in Wright's canonical and lesser-known writing and the implications of black male vulnerability.
Includes essays: "Alternative Readings of Bigger Thomas" and "Richard Wright and the Critique of Class Theory"
Reading Testimony, Witnessing Trauma: Confronting Race, Gender, and Violence in American Literature by ISBN: 9781496827364Publication Date: 2020Eden Wales Freeman articulates a theory of reading (or dual-witnessing) that explores how narrators and readers can witness trauma together. She places these original theories of traumatic reception in conversation with the African American literary tradition to speak to the histories, cultures, and traumas of African Americans, particularly the repercussions of slavery, as witnessed in African American literature. The volume also considers intersections of race and gender and how narrators and readers can cross such constructs to witness collectively.
Includes chapter: “'This Thing We Have Done Together': Haunted Witnessing in the Novels of Toni Morrison and Jesmyn Ward"
Southern Comforts: Drinking and the U.S. South by Call Number: Ebook - Access online using link in VirgoISBN: 9780807173305Publication Date: 2020Moving beyond familiar myths about moonshiners, bootleggers, and hard-drinking writers, "Southern Comforts" explores how alcohol and drinking helped shape the literature and culture of the U.S. South. Edited by Conor Picken and Matthew Dischinger, this collection of seventeen thought-provoking essays proposes that discussions about drinking in southern culture often orbit around familiar figures and mythologies that obscure what drinking has meant over time.
Includes essay: "Trashed: Women Under the Influence of Alcohol in Wright's Native Son"
Tarell Alvin McCraney: Theater, Performance and Collaboration by Call Number: Ebook - Access online using link in VirgoISBN: 9780810141940Publication Date: 2020This is the first book to dedicate scholarly attention to the work of Tarell Alvin McCraney, one of the most significant writers and theater-makers of the twenty-first century. Featuring essays, interviews, and commentaries by scholars and artists who span generations, geographies, and areas of interest, the volume examines McCraney's theatrical imagination, his singular writerly voice, his incisive cultural critiques, his stylistic and formal creativity, and his distinct personal and professional trajectories.
Includes essay: "The Distant Present of Tarell Alvin McCraney," which focuses mainly on two plays: Head of Passes and Choir Boy
Ten Years after Katrina: Critical Perspectives of the Storm's Effect on American Culture and Identity by Call Number: Ebook (also owned in print - check Virgo)ISBN: 9780739192689Publication Date: 2014Hurricane Katrina blasted the Gulf Coast in 2005, leaving an unparalleled trail of physical destruction. But beyond the reportage and the commentary, a series of fictional and creative accounts of the Katrina-experience have emerged in various mediums: novels, plays, films, television shows, songs, graphic novels, collections of photographs, and works of creative non-fiction that blur the lines between reportage, memoir, and poetry.
Includes essay: "Pregnancies, Storms, and Legacies of Loss in Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones"
