Research Guides: English: American Literature

Journals

The following are links to specific academic journals which are published and peer-reviewed by experts in the field. If you want to narrow your search to a specific time period or genre, finding a journal that publishes in that area can help. For example, if you are writing a paper about Cormac McCarthy, you might want to check out Western American Literature.

American Literary History
Designed to cover a more broad range of criticism on American literature from a wide-range of genres, topics, and time periods.
American Literature
Includes articles on American authors from all time-periods as well as a large book review section.
American Poetry Review
Criticism on contemporary American poets.
Early American Literature
Focuses on American literature from the early national period up until 1830. EAL "invites work treating Native American traditional expressions, colonial Ibero-American literature from North America, colonial American Francophone writings, Dutch colonial, and German American colonial literature as well as writings in English from British America and the US."
Western American Literature
Focuses on works and topics surrounding the American West, including traditional western authors as well as New Westerns like Cormac McCarthy or Sherman Alexie.

Internet Resources

America: History and Life
Historical coverage of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.
Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation
U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1873. Continental Congress, Constitutional Convention, 1st - 42nd Congresses.
Making of America (Cornell)
Nineteenth century American social history. Emphasis on education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. 267 books and 100,000 articles. Produced by Cornell University.
Making of America
Nineteenth century American social history. Emphasis on education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. 8,500 books and 50,000 journal articles. Produced by the University of Michigan.

Books

Search the entire library catalog here.

Materials on Literature topics are found under the "P" category more generally, while subclass PS features American literature specifically. These books are found on the third floor of the Chester Fritz Library.

PS1-3576	American literature
PS201-217	19th century
PS221-228	20th century
PS229-231	21st century
PS241-286	Special regions, states, etc
PS301-326	Poetry
PS330-353	Drama
PS360-380	Prose
PS501-689	Collections of American literature

Literature and history are, and have always been, closely related. To help understand the literature and its times, try searching for words such as:

United States History
United States Midwest
American History
American People
American Civil War Literature
African American Writing
American Gay and Lesbian Literature

There are also many eBooks available. Two examples:

Captain America, Masculinity, and Violence by J. Richard Stevens
Call Number: PN6728.C35 S77 2015
Captain America's adventures span from World War II through the Cold War to the American War on Terror. In Captain America, Masculinity, and Violence, Stevens reveals how the hero evolved to maintain relevance to America's fluctuating ideas of masculinity, patriotism, and violence. Tracking the history of Captain America's adventures, Stevens places them in dialogue with the comic book industry as well as American politics, showing how the hero represents the ultimate American story: permanent enough to survive for more than seventy years with a history fluid enough to be constantly reinterpreted to meet the needs of an ever-changing culture.
Wolf-Women and Phantom Ladies: Female Desire in 1940s US Culture by Steven Dillon. State University of New York Press, 2016.
Call Number: PS173.W6 D55 2015
Popular culture in the 1940s is organized as patriarchal theater. Men gaze upon, evaluate, and coerce women, who are obliged in their turn to put themselves on sexual display. In such a thoroughly patriarchal society, what happens to female sexual desire? Wolf-Women and Phantom Ladies unearths this female desire by conducting a panoramic survey of 1940s culture that analyzes popular novels, daytime radio serials, magazines and magazine fiction, marital textbooks, Hollywood and educational films, jungle comics, and popular music. In addition to popular works, Steven Dillon discusses many lesser-known texts and artists, including Ella Mae Morse, a key figure in the founding of Capitol Records, and Lisa Ben, creator of the first lesbian magazine in the United States.

Encyclopedias

Here you can find general background information, definitions, and history on many literary terms, concepts, works, and authors specific to American literature.

Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature
A bibliography-focused encyclopedia of American literature.
A New Literary History of America
A New Literary History of America contains essays on topics from the first conception of a New World in the sixteenth century to the latest re-envisioning of that world in cartoons, television, science fiction, and hip hop. Literature, music, film, art, history, science, philosophy, political rhetoriccultural creations of every kind appear in relation to each other, and to the time and place that give them shape. Also contains an introduction and index.
Encyclopedia of African-American Writing
Covers the role and influence of African-American cultural leaders, from all walks of life, from the 17th century to the present.

Movie / TV Adaptations

The library has a collection which includes many film and television adaptations of some of American literature's most popular and impactful works both in physical DVD / bluray formats and on digital platforms. Please see the DVDs and Streaming Video guide for instructions on how to access.

The DVD's are on the the third floor of the library and can be checked out with your student ID just like books!