LibGuides: Black American Literature: Finding Articles (Databases)

Learning To Use Databases

Search Strategies for English Majors
Offers tips and tricks for using three major databases: MLA International Bibliography, JSTOR, and Project Muse. Contact your Librarian (Paizha) if you need help!

Literature (Literary Criticism)

These databases make it easy to search for articles about a work of Literature, such as Americanah and The Bluest Eye.

MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
The most scholarly and comprehensive database for articles and books on the modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics and literary aspects of film. You can search for subject terms like: "African American experience," "Black identity" "Relationship to racial discrimination," and more.
Coverage: 1880s to present

The MLA Bibliography contains detailed bibliographic information on scholarly publications from around the world and across a broad range of topics, including
- Literature from any country and in any language
- Literary theory and criticism
- Dramatic arts (film, radio, television, theater)
- Folklore
- Linguistics
- College-level teaching of language, literature, and rhetoric and composition
- History of printing and publishing
Gale Literature This link opens in a new window
Provides access to Gale Literature including Resource Center, Contemporary Authors, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Literature Criticism and LitFinder. The database brings together these literary databases allowing searching across these resources.
- Contemporary Authors Online
- Dictionary of Literary Biography
- Literature Criticism Online

Interdisciplinary or Broad Topics

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
A multidisciplinary database that allows you to search across literature, history, and ethnic studies.
To see which titles are available in full-text, as well as the names of all titles indexed and abstracted, check the EBSCOhost Database Coverage List and Title List by Subject . Updated daily.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Offers interdisciplinary content including approximately 2,600 academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials.
On occasions, you may encounter problems opening PDFs. The reason for this to happen is most likely due to the time out error. This could be due to a slow internet connection or a large download size. Many times, articles with images contained in them will time out the download.
To resolve this, right click on the link "Proceed to PDF" and select "Save Target As..." (or "Save Link as..." for Firefox). This will allow you to save the PDF to your computer and should allow for a faster, more successful download.
If the problem persists, check the PDF Help Page at JSTOR
Project Muse This link opens in a new window
Provide access to full-text scholarly journals in the Humanities and Social Sciences with over 120 publishers currently participating.
View the List of Journals Covered
Humanities Full-Text This link opens in a new window
Art, film, music, world literature, philosophy, religion, and more - about 400 English-language periodicals.
1995 to date. Updated monthly.

Gender, Sociology, and Psychology

GenderWatch This link opens in a new window
Provides access to online full-text collection of 125 international publications plus reports, pamphlets, papers and conference proceedings devoted to women and gender issues.
The database provides in-depth coverage of the subjects that are uniquely central to women's daily lives, including family, childbirth, birth control, daycare, domestic abuse, work and the workplace, sexual harassment, aging, aging parents, body image, eating disorders and social and societal roles. It also includes content on the impact of gender and gender roles.
Contemporary Women's Issues This link opens in a new window
Contemporary Women's Issues (CWI), a multidisciplinary, full-text database that brings together relevant content from mainstream periodicals, "gray" literature, and the alternative press -- with a focus on the critical issues and events that influence women's lives in more than 190 countries.
SocIndex with Full-Text This link opens in a new window
Covers a broad range of studies, including gender studies, criminal justice, social psychology, religion, racial studies and social work. In addition to full-text journals, SocINDEX with Full Text contains informative abstracts for core coverage journals dating as far back as 1895. Complete with extensive indexing for books, monographs, conference papers and other non-periodical content sources, the database also includes searchable cited references.
PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
Includes access to over 1,800 professional journals, chapters, books, reports, theses and dissertations, published internationally. Additionally, there are more than 8 million cited references in 185,000 journal articles, books, and book chapters.
Subject Coverage
- Applied psychology
- Communication systems
- Developmental psychology
- Educational psychology
- Experimental human and animal psychology
- Personality
- Psychological and physical disorders
- Physiological psychology and neuroscience
- Professional personnel and issues
- Psychometrics and statistics
- Social psychology
- Social processes and issues
- Sports psychology and leisure
- Treatment and prevention

American History

Slavery and Anti-Slavery This link opens in a new window
Slavery and Anti-Slavery (SAS): A Transnational Archive, Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 is a collection devoted to the scholarly study and understanding of slavery from a multinational perspective.
Part 1: Debates
Part 2: Slave Trade
Part 3: Institution
Part 4: Emancipation
America: History & Life This link opens in a new window
Covers history of the United States and Canada from 1493. It indexes over 1,800 journals and Ph.D. dissertations including book reviews. Its Clio Notes provide guides on key topics in United States history and allow you to browse through chronologies and brief summaries of significant events and themes from the Colonization of America to the 21st Century.
Coverage: 1895-present
American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection - Five Series
The collection documents the life of America's people from the Colonial Era through the Civil War and Reconstruction. It provides access to American periodicals published between 1684 and 1912 in five series.
Series 1 (1691-1820)
Series 2 (1821-1837)
Series 3 (1838-1852)
Series 4 (1853-1865)
Series 5 (1866-1877)

Journals

To browse journals, search OneSearch for a subject phrase, such as "African American Literature" or "Toni Morrison." Select "Journals" from the filters.

List of Journals on the subject of African American Literature

To search for a specific journal, visit our Journal Page.

Librarian for English and Literature

Kelsey Brown

University Library

Black American Literature