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Feminism & Literature: A Guide for Research |
This is a highly selective guide for finding materials on feminism and literature. The subject area is, by nature, interdisciplinary, and you will find resources both within classifications for Women's Studies and for Literature. For more information, consult the Library of Congress Classification Outline below.
I. Background Research
I. A. Feminist Philosophy and Theory:
Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
I. B. Feminist Literary Theory
I. C. Women Writers
I. D. Literary Biography
I. E. Resources for Other National Literatures
II. Article Databases
II. A. Women's Studies Databases
II. B. Literature Studies Databases
II. B. Interdisciplinary Databases
III. Finding Books on Your Topic
IV. Volumes Reprinting Excerpts of Criticism
Library of Congress Classification System
The following classification system holds true for any library in the world
that uses the Library of Congress (LC) system. Women's Studies resources will
always be classed in the HQs, while Language and Literature will be in the Ps.
General Literature will be in the PNs, Romance Language Literature in the PQs,
English Literature in the PRs, American Literature in the PSs, and Germanic
Literature in the PTs.
For more information, see the Library of Congress Classification Outline.
I. Background Research
Tools such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, and chronologies provide basic,
contextual information. Use them to clarify meaning or choose and refine a topic.
Many of these works provide bibliographies for further research. The following works
are all located in the Reference Room of Davis Library.
I. A. Feminist Philosophy and Theory: Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
The Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism. Ed. Joseph
Childers and Tary Hentzi. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.
Davis Reference BH39 .C62 1995
Also available electronically via
Literature Online (LION): select "Criticism & Reference," then "Reference."
A Companion to Feminist Philosophy. Ed. Alison M. Jaggar and Iris Marion Young.
Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.
Davis Reference HQ1190 .C665 1998
Contemporary Feminist Theories. Ed. Stevi Jackson and Jackie Jones. New York:
New York University Press, 1998.
Davis HQ1150 .C665 1998
Encyclopedia of Feminist Theories. Ed. Lorraine Cole. London: Routledge, 2000.
Davis Reference HQ1190 .E63 2000
A Glossary of Feminist Theory. Ed. Sonya Andermahr, Terry Lovel, and Carol Wolkowitz.
London: Arnold, 1997.
Over 300 cross-referenced essays on theoretical concepts in contemporary feminism.
Davis Reference HQ1190 .A53 1997
(2000 edition available in main stacks of Davis : HQ1190 .A53 2000)
The Routledge Critical Dictionary of Feminism and Postfeminism. Ed. Sarah Gamble.
New York: Routledge, 2000.
Encyclopedic essays on various topics in feminist and postfeminist theory, including literature.
Davis Reference HQ1115 .R68 2000
I. B. Feminist Literary Theory
Encyclopedia of Feminist Literary Theory. Ed. Elizabeth Kowaleski-Wallace. New York:
Garland, 1997.
Entries on important concepts and people.
Davis Reference PN98 .W64 E53 1997
I. C. Women Writers
The Bloomsbury Guide to Women's Literature. Ed. Claire Buck. New York: Prentice Hall,
1992.
Encyclopedic essays organized by region and time period.
Davis Reference PN471 .B57 1992
British Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide. Ed. Janet Todd. New York: Continuum,
1989
Davis Reference PR111 .B75 1989
An Encyclopedia of Continental Women Writers. 2 vols. Ed. Katharina M. Wilson.
New York: Garland, 1991.
Davis Reference PN481 .E5 1991
The Female Dramatist: Profiles of Women Playwrights from the Middle Ages to Contemporary Times.
Elaine T. Partow. New York: Facts on File, 1998.
Davis Reference PN471 .P37 1998
Feminism in Literature: A Gale Critical Companion. 6 vols.
Ed. Jessica Bomariot and Jeffrey W. Hunter. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005.
Includes timelines and entries on individual authors. Vol. 1 covers antiquity through the
18th century; vols. 2-3 cover the 19th century; and vols. 4-6 cover the 20th century.
Davis Reference PN471 .F43 2005 v.1-6
The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to
the Present.
Ed. Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy. New Haven: Yale UP, 1990.
Davis Reference PR111 .F465 1990
Feminist Writers. Ed. Pamela Kester-Shelton. Detroit: St. James, 1996.
Encyclopedic entries on hundreds of writers, including biography, bibliography, and critical
bibliography.
Davis Reference PN451 .F46 1996
The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States.
Ed. Cathy N. Davidson and Linda Wagner-Martin. New York: Oxford UP, 1995.
Davis Reference PS147 .O94 1995
Third World Women's Literature: A Dictionary and Guide to Materials in English.
Ed. Barbara Fister. Westport , CT: Greenwood, 1995.
Listings by country and region and alphabetical by author; includes bibliography of criticism.
Davis Reference PN849 .U43 F58 1995
Davis PN849 .U43 F58 1995
Who's Who in Contemporary Women's Writing. Ed. Jane Eldridge Miller. London: Routledge,
2001.
Focuses on international women writers whose careers began in the 1960s and later.
Davis Reference PN471 .W496 2001
Women Writers of Great Britain and Europe : An Encyclopedia.
Ed. Katharina M. Wilson, Paul Schlueter, and June Schlueter. New York: Garland, 1997.
Reprints, with photos, selections from An Encyclopedia of Continental Women Writers
(above).
Davis Reference PN471 .W565 1997
I. D. Literary Biography
The Dictionary of Literary Biography is a multi-volume set
that presents biographical information on authors via various themes.
The following volumes, located in Davis Reference Row 3, may be helpful.
(The content of these volumes is also available online via the
Literature Resource Center.)
Vol. 200: American Women Prose Writers to 1820
Vol. 239: American Women Prose Writers, 1820-1870
Vol. 240: Late Nineteenth- and early Twentieth-Century British Women Poets
I. E. Resources for Other National Literatures
Dictionnaire Littéraire des Femmes de Langue Française: de Marie de
France à Marie NDiaye.
Ed. Christiane P. Makward and Madeleine Cottenet-Hage. Paris: Karthala, 1996.
Davis Reference PQ149 .M27 1996
The Feminist Encyclopedia of German Literature.
Ed. Friederike Eigler and Susanne Kord. Westport , CT: Greenwood P, 1997.
Davis Reference PT41 .F46 1997
The Feminist Encyclopedia of Spanish Literature.
Ed. Janet Perez and Maureen Ihrie. Westport , CT: Greenwood P, 2002.
Davis Reference PQ6055 .F46 2002
II. Article Databases
You may want to consult the following databases to find articles on your topic. The first
several databases are interdisciplinary women's studies databases, which cover a broad range
of sources in the social science and humanities, including literature. The second set of databases
focuses on literary sources.
II. A. Women's Studies Databases
Women's Studies International
An interdisciplinary resource covering areas from history and culture to sociology and health,
with sources from 1964 on. Includes literary journals and interdisciplinary women's studies
journals that cover literature.
Gender Watch
A full-text collection of international journals, magazines, newsletters,
regional publications, special reports, and conference proceedings devoted
to women's and gender issues, with some material dating back to the mid 1970s.
Contemporary Women's Issues
Indexes material on women's issues with an emphasis on the international,
including journals, newsletters, research reports from non-profit groups,
government and international agencies, along with fact sheets.
II. B. Literature Studies Databases
See the
MLA - ABELL Search Guide for assistance searching the literary databases.
MLA
International Bibliography
MLA is the principal index for modern literatures. It covers journal articles,
books, book chapters, conference proceedings, and dissertations in literature,
languages, linguistics, and folklore.
ABELL (Annual
Bibliography of English Language and Literature)
ABELL indexes scholarly literature for English language literatures. Some full-text links.
Literature
Resource Center
Critical and biographical information on more than 120,000 authors from the
Classical period to the present. You can search by author name or use the
"Author by Type" feature to search for themes or movements. For example, you can search for
the following: antifeminism, female-male relations, female identity,
feminism, feminist criticism, girls, women in literature, women's rights.
II. B. Interdisciplinary Databases
Academic Search
Premier
Covers popular and scholarly journal articles with many full-text articles from a wide range of
academic areas including business, social sciences, humanities, general academic, general science,
education and multi-cultural topics.
Expanded Academic
ASAP
Abstracts & references for articles from more than 1,500 scholarly, trade and general
publications, and references for The NY Times. Includes full-text for many titles.
III. Finding Books on Your Topic
If you are looking for books at UNC-Chapel Hill on a specific topic,
you will be searching the University Library
catalog. If you are searching for books about Edith Wharton
(rather than books by her), search for her as "subject" rather
than as "author" (search type = Subject Heading).
For a major writer like Wharton, there will be a number of topical subdivisions
for her as subject, e.g., "biography," "correspondence," "criticism and interpretation."
A Subject Heading search automatically truncates, so if you search by subject for "wharton, edith"
your search will pick up all the subcategories for her.
When a book is cataloged, it is assigned "subject headings"
according to a controlled vocabulary known as Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH).
If you do not know the terminology or the order of the terms,
you can do a Keyword Search to identify the authorized
headings. For example, a keyword search for "feminism and american literature"
retrieves the following L. C. Subject Headings:
Feminism and literature -- United States
Women and literature -- United States
Caveat: Keyword searching can be very sloppy, so use it to identify one or two relevant records, then do a Subject Search using the identified subject headings.
Below are some subject headings that may be helpful to your research, especially if you combine them with other subject headings.
Potentially Useful Library of Congress Subject Headings
These entries focus on literature in English created
in the United States and England; there are also subject headings
for other nations and languages that follow a similar format.
American fiction -- Women authors
English fiction -- Women authors
Feminism and literature
Feminism in literature
Feminist literature
Feminist fiction
Feminist fiction, American
Feminist fiction, English
Feminist criticism
Feminist literary criticism
Feminism and theater
Literature -- Women authors
Women authors
Women and literature
Women in literature
III. Volumes Reprinting Excerpts of Criticism
The following sets may be helpful as you begin your research on a particular author. These sets publish entries on several authors per volume, and each entry has excerpts of criticism. Each new set is published with a cumulative index, so the highest-numbered volume indexes the entire set (and other sets in this series). The critical pieces are arranged chronologically, so these can be helpful for tracing early critical reception. The contents of some of these volumes are also available online, in the Literature Resource Center database.
For Further Assistance Contact:
Tommy Nixon
Davis Library Reference Dept.
962-1151
tommy_nixon@unc.edu
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