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NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE
Colgate Univ. Library Research Guide

Locating Books through the online catalog

There are two ways to execute a subject search in the Library's online catalog. The subject key word search can be the best place to begin your quest for books in Case Library. For a more specific type of subject searching use the Library of Congress terms listed below with an exact subject headings search.  Hot Tip: If you find a great book on your subject, check the bibliography for other books to read.

Library of Congress Subject Headings:

[author's last name] [first name] -- Criticism and interpretation
[Tribal Group] -- Fiction   for example: Iroquois Indians --Fiction
Indian Authors
Indians in Literature 
Indian Literature

Indians of North America -- Literary collections

Indians of North America -- Drama.
Indians of North America -- Poetry.
Indians of North America -- Fiction
American Literature --Indian Authors
American drama -- Indian authors.

American poetry -- Indian authors -- History and criticism
American Fiction --Indian Authors 
Indians of North America -- Folklore
Oral tradition. 
Indian Captivities
Indians in popular culture -- United States
Indians of North America -- Public opinion
Western films -- United States -- History and criticism
Indians in motion pictures
Indians in the motion picture industry -- United States

Locating journal articles via indexes and abstracts

Consult the databases listed below to identify journal articles and other materials on your topic. Be aware that spelling may differ from one index to another. For example works on the Navajo may be indexed as "Navaho", "Navajo" or both ways. Searching on the keyword 'Dine' may also yield some articles on this people. Hot tip: Consult Word Dance (Case Ref. E76.2 .W36 1994) to find out the variant names and spellings for each nation. 

To identify which electronic or print journals Colgate owns, check Journal Finder .

MLA Bibliography

This is the essential database to search for scholarly material in the area of literature and language.  MLA International Bibliography which is produced by the Modern Language Association, dates back to 1926 and contains over 1.6 million citations from more than 4,400 journals and series and 1,000 book publishers. Key subject terms: "Native American Writers". "Native American women", "Cultural identity", "Oral tradition".

 

Literature Resource Center

Covers biographies, literary criticism and about 250 journals in fields of literature, language, linguistics and folklore for all modern languages.  Includes the Dictionary of Literary Biography and Contemporary Authors. Includes most of Contemporary Literary Criticism, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, and Twentieth Century Literature Criticism.

 

LION (Literature Online) (1920-    )

Literature Online, a fully searchable library of more than 350,000 works of English and American poetry, drama and prose, 154 full-text literature journals, and other key criticism and reference resources.

 

Academic Search Premier

The world’s largest academic multi-disciplinary database, Academic Search Premier provides full text for nearly 4,700 publications, including full text for more than 3,600 peer-reviewed journals. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals, and searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,000 titles. This database is updated on a daily basis via EBSCOhost.

 

Bibliography of Native North Americans

This database contains citations from the cumulative eight volume set of the Ethnographic Bibliography of North America as well as additional new citations to books, journal articles, essays, conference papers, and US Government documents.

 

Ethnic News Watch (Coverage varies with each title with some back to 1980)

This database provides the full text of articles in newspapers published by various ethnic presses in the United States. It currently includes more than 28 newspapers from the Native North American press with over 10,000 articles. Good for understanding current issues. One tip: Use the "type of article" field to look for an "interview", "book review", "movie review", "theater review", or "literary" article and then place the author's name in the "words in article" field. 

 

JSTOR

Over 100 core scholarly journals (Journals currently available) from vol. 1 to within 2-5 years of current vol. depending on the title

 

Periodical Contents Index

This is an index to articles published in 4,698 periodicals in the humanities and social sciences. PCI currently indexes 15.1 million articles published since the eighteenth century through 1990 and every article in each journal is indexed.

 

19th Century Masterfile (1802-1906)

Allows searching of Index to Periodical Literature (Poole), Index to Periodicals (Steade), and Cumulative Index to Selected List of Periodicals, Index to Legal Periodical Literature,  Periodical Articles on Religion, and Psychology Index.

 

Book Reviews

Online Sources

Locating Background materials

Works Specific to Native American Literature

Native American Literatures: An encyclopedia of Works, Characters, Authors, and Themes (1999)

Feminism in literature : a Gale critical companion.  Case Ref PN471 .F43 2005 vols. 1-6.
Handbook of Native American Literature. Case Ref PM155 D53 1996
Native American Writers of the United States. Case Ref PS153 I52 N39 1997
American Indian Literatures : an introduction, bibliographic reviews, and selected bibliography. Case Ref PM155 .R86 1990
A Biobibliography of Native American Writers, 1772-1924. Case Ref E77 .L57 plus supplement
American Ethnic Literatures : ...writers and their backgrounds : an annotated bibliography. Case Ref PS153 .M56 P44 1992
Contemporary Native American Literature : a selected annotated bibliography. Case Ref PS153.I52 J33
Dictionary of Native American literature. Case Ref PM155 .D53 1994
Narratives of North American Indian captivity : a selective bibliography. Case Ref E85 .V28  
The Native American in Long Fiction : an annotated bibliography. Case Ref PS374.I49 B42 1996
Native North American Literature : biographical & critical info...from the US & Canada from historical times to the present. Case Ref. PS508.I5 N38 1994

Mythology, Religion, and Symbolism

Encyclopedia of Native American Religions. Case Ref E98 .R3 H73 2000
Dictionary of Native American Mythology. Case Ref E98 .R3 G46 1992
An Encyclopedia of Archetypal Symbolism. Case Ref BL603 .A72 1991

note: See the index under "Native American Images"

Selected Internet Sites for  Native American Authors

 

American Native Press Archives

The Department of English at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the Ottenheimer Library maintain this site with its mission of "collecting and archiving the products of the Native press and materials related to Native press history, collecting and documenting the works of Native writers, and constructing bibliographic guides to Native writing and publishing. It stands today as one of the world's largest repositories of Native thought."

 

NativeWeb listings for literature

 

Native American Authors

"This website provides information on Native North American authors with bibliographies of their published works, biographical information, and links to online resources including interviews, online texts and tribal websites. Currently the website primarily contains information on contemporary Native American authors, although some historical authors are represented."

 

Index of Native American Resources

see sections on "electronic texts" as well as "books" (links to Native American authors)

 

Other Useful Information