General Databases
- America: History & Life with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Provides historical and cultural coverage of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Includes information abstracted from journals published worldwide.
- Ethnic Diversity Source This link opens in a new window
This full-text database is a resource covering the culture, traditions, social treatment and lived experiences of different ethnic groups in America. It provides full text from a growing list of sources including peer-reviewed journals, magazines, e-books, biographies, videos, and primary source documents.
- GenderWatch This link opens in a new window
GenderWatch is a comprehensive resource for gender and women's studies. It offers full articles on topics like sexuality, religion, societal roles, feminism, masculinity, eating disorders, healthcare, and the workplace.
- LGBTQ+ Source This link opens in a new window
Provides abstracts and citations to Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender literature published worldwide. Citations represent periodical articles, books, newspapers, newsletters, case studies, speeches, and other formats. Also includes full text for GLBT journals, magazines and regional newspapers, as well as numerous full text books.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Images of the full text of many scholarly titles in a range of subject areas, including literature, biological sciences, economics, finance, and statistics. Search the archive or pull up a specific article.
- Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Project MUSE provides full-text access scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences. The database is a collaboration between Johns Hopkins University and other university presses and not-for-profit publishers. Also included are the UPCC collections in Asian and Pacific Studies, and Poetry, Fiction and Creative Non-Fiction.
Magazines and Periodicals
- Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975 This link opens in a new windowA wide range of material, from government documents to fanzines, video content to posters and scrapbooks, tells the story of a time of music, political unrest, fashion and new technology.
- American Periodicals Series (Collection I) This link opens in a new window
This collection includes digitized images of the pages of American magazines, journals, and newspapers published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines.
- ProQuest Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Provides full text of many U.S. and international news sources. Includes the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Times of London, plus other newspapers and news wires.
- Alt-PressWatch This link opens in a new window
Provides news source coverage, viewpoints and perspectives to complement and challenge the mainstream media.
- Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window
Ethnic NewsWatch is a full-text database with newspapers, magazines, and journals of ethnic, minority, and native presses globally. It covers diverse issues in countries like the U.S., Ireland, Israel, Mexico, China, and more, offering alternative viewpoints on current events. Updated monthly.
- Nation Archive, The This link opens in a new window
The Nation offers a 135-year archive of reporting opinion and criticism. It includes primary source material covering the history of politics, culture, books and the arts - in America and around the world. The Nation Digital Archive is a fully searchable electronic version of the magazine's complete backfile.
- Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
Full-text archive of many important magazines documenting the early days of the film, television and popular music industries. Notably, includes Billboard (1894-2000), Variety (1905-2000), and The Stage (1880-2000).
- Rock's Backpages This link opens in a new window
This database of rock journalism includes articles and reviews, fully searchable by artist, genre, writer, or keyword. Also included are audio interviews with rock musicians.
- Vogue Archive This link opens in a new windowA complete searchable archive of American Vogue, from the first issue in 1892 to the current month, reproduced in high-resolution color page images. Every page, advertisement, cover and fold-out has been included, with indexing allowing users to find images by garment type, designer and brand names.
- Godey's Lady's Book This link opens in a new window
This collection is a part of Accessible Archives and provides the complete run of Godey's Lady's Book published in 1830 by Louis Antoine Godey, includes color plates and original issues. The magazine targeted American women and featured fashion descriptions, biographical sketches, articles, and sheet music.
Resources by Topic
Databases:
- Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Film & Television Literature Index Full Text is a comprehensive full-text database covering a range of television and film research, including film & television theory, preservation & restoration, screenwriting, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews. It also includes Variety movie reviews from 1914 to present and images from the MPTV Image Archive.
- Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
Full-text archive of many important magazines documenting the early days of the film, television and popular music industries. Notably, includes Billboard (1894-2000), Variety (1905-2000), and The Stage (1880-2000).
Streaming Video:
- Kanopy Films Streaming Service This link opens in a new window
Kanopy is an on-demand streaming video service for educational institutions that works directly with filmmakers and film distribution companies to offer award-winning collections including titles from PBS, BBC, Criterion Collection, Media Education Foundation and more.
- Swank Motion Pictures This link opens in a new window
Swank Motion Pictures provides streaming services for some of the latest box-office hits, documentaries, independent films, international movies and classics. Studios represented by Swank’s services include: Walt Disney Pictures, Warner Brothers, Paramount, MGM, United Artists, New Line Cinema, Touchstone Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, Lionsgate, Miramax, National Geographic, and more.
- Latin America in Video This link opens in a new window
Latin America in Video offers original language documentaries from some of the most important producers and independent filmmakers in Latin America. Produced by Latin Americans, about Latin American issues, such as cultural identity, political history, human rights, popular culture, agribusiness, education, religion, and more.
- Vanderbilt Television News Archive This link opens in a new window
The TVNA collection holds individual network evening news broadcasts from the major U.S. national broadcast networks - ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN - and hours of special news-related programming, including ABC's Nightline since 1989.
Comics Collections:
- Comics @ Hoole LibraryHoole Special Collections is home to three collections of comics: American comics from the 20th century (including Marvel, DC, and less well-known adventure comics) and 300 volumes of Indian comics from the 21st century.
- Comics @ McLure LibraryUA Libraries' circulating collection of comics is located in McLure Library. This link will take you to a Scout search for comic books and graphic novels located in McLure. Add a search term at the top of the page to narrow the search.
- Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels This link opens in a new window
This collection documents a large spectrum of underground and independent North American and European comics and graphic novels. It includes original material along with interviews, commentary, theory, and criticism from journals, books, and magazines, including The Comics Journal.
Selected Books:
Understanding Comics by Call Number: Gorgas Library PN6710 .M335 1994The bestselling international classic on storytelling and visual communication. Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics is a seminal examination of comics art: its rich history, surprising technical components, and major cultural significance. Explore the secret world between the panels, through the lines, and within the hidden symbols of a powerful but misunderstood art form.
Comics Studies Here and Now by Call Number: eBookComics Studies Here and Now marks the arrival of comics studies scholarship that no longer feels the need to justify itself within or against other fields of study. The essays herein move us forward, some in their re-diggings into comics history and others by analyzing comics--and all its transmedial and fan-fictional offshoots--on its own terms. This collection of scholarly essays is a testament to the fact that comic book studies have come into their own as an academic discipline; simply and powerfully moving comic studies forward with their critical excavations and theoretical formulas based on the common sense understanding that comics add to the world as unique, transformative cultural phenomena.
Latinx Superheroes in Mainstream Comics by Call Number: Gorgas Library PN6725 .A37 2017The foremost expert on Latinx comics, Frederick Luis Aldama guides us through the full archive of all the Latinx superheros in comics since the 1940s. Aldama takes us where the superheroes live--the barrios, the hospitals, the school rooms, the farm fields--and he not only shows us a view to the Latinx content, sometimes deeply embedded, but also provokes critical inquiry into the way storytelling formats distill and reconstruct real Latinos/as. Thoroughly entertaining but seriously undertaken, Latinx Superheroes in Mainstream Comics allows us to truly see how superhero comic book storyworlds are willfully created in ways that make new our perception, thoughts, and feelings.
Jews and American Comics: An Illustrated History of an American Art Form by Call Number: Gorgas Library PN6725 .J49 2008Readers have long cherished the work of comic masters such as Will Eisner, Jules Feiffer and Art Spiegelman, all of whom happen to be Jewish. Few, however, are probably aware that the Jewish role in creating the American comic art form is no less significant than the Jewish influence on Hollywood filmmaking. Filled with the most stunning examples of this vital artistic tradition, Jews and American Comics tells us how the people of the book' became the people of the comic book.'
Databases:
- SPORTDiscus with Full Text This link opens in a new window
An international database covering sports medicine, sports law, exercise physiology, biomechanics, sports psychology, training techniques, coaching, physical fitness, recreation facilities and equipment. Includes citations to scholarly articles, books, conference proceedings, theses and dissertations, reports, and other materials produced by international sports organizations.
- SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new window
SocINDEX with Full Text provides content covering such topics as abortion, criminology and criminal justice, demography, ethnic and racial studies, gender studies, marriage and family, political sociology, religion, rural and urban sociology, social development, social psychology, social structure, social work, socio-cultural anthropology, sociological history, sociological research, sociological theory, substance abuse and other addictions, violence and many others.
- AnthroSource This link opens in a new window
AnthroSource provides access to past, present, and future articles published in AAA journals, newsletters, bulletins, and monographs.
Selected Books:
Rooting for the Home Team: Sport, Community, and Identity by Call Number: McLure Library GV706.5 .R66 2013Rooting for the Home Team examines how various American communities create and maintain a sense of collective identity through sports. Looking at large cities such as Chicago, Baltimore, and Los Angeles as well as small rural towns, suburbs, and college towns, the contributors consider the idea that rooting for local athletes and home teams often symbolizes a community's preferred understanding of itself, and that doing so is an expression of connectedness, public pride and pleasure, and personal identity.
America's Game(s): A Critical Anthropology of Sport by Call Number: McLure Library GV706.5 .A45 2008This insightful volume considers how to locate America in the sporting world. Collectively, the contributors argue that American sports as a category needs to be reconsidered, to take into account the extensive networks of expertise, finance, and performance moving out from American athletic institutions as well as the ever increasing influx of talent coming from abroad that sustains American collegiate and professional athletics.
Contesting 'Race' and Sport: Shaming the Color Line by Call Number: McLure V706.32 .H949 2018Inspired by W.E.B. Du Bois' statement that "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the colour line", this book sheds a critical light on the way sport perpetuates racism, while identifying opportunities to challenge its insidious presence. Exploring and explaining the ways in which notions of race are expressed and contested at individual, institutional and societal levels, it addresses key topics such as whiteness, diversity, colourblindness, unconscious bias, identity, leadership, humour and discourse to investigate how language can be used as a device for resistance against racism in sport.
Out of Play: Critical Essays on Gender and Sport by Call Number: McLure GV706.5 .M46 2007From beer ads in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue to four-year-old boys and girls playing soccer; from male athletes’ sexual violence against women to homophobia and racism in sport, Out of Play analyzes connections between gender and sport from the 1980s to the present. Drawing on his own memories as a former athlete, informal observations of his children’s sports activities, and more formal research such as life-history interviews with athletes and content analyses of sports media, Michael A. Messner presents a multifaceted picture of gender constructed through an array of personalities, institutions, cultural symbols, and everyday interactions.
Databases and Resource Guides:
- Music Periodicals Database This link opens in a new window
This database provides indexing and abstracts for international music periodicals from multiple countries, plus some full text. The majority of the included records are from the most recent ten years of publication. Covers the full spectrum of subjects and all aspects of music, including music education, performance, ethnomusicology, musical theatre, theory, popular music forms and composition.
- Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
Full-text archive of many important magazines documenting the early days of the film, television and popular music industries. Notably, includes Billboard (1894-2000), Variety (1905-2000), and The Stage (1880-2000).
- Rock's Backpages This link opens in a new window
This database of rock journalism includes articles and reviews, fully searchable by artist, genre, writer, or keyword. Also included are audio interviews with rock musicians.
- Oxford Music Online This link opens in a new window
Oxford Music Online (OMO) is the access-point for Oxford music reference subscriptions and products, including Grove Music Online, The Oxford Companion to Music, The Oxford Dictionary of Music, and Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Patrons can cross-search products for full text articles, browse by subject, and link to images, digital sound, and related sites.
- Resources for Jazz StudiesExplore UA Libraries' resources on jazz in this guide.
Selected Books:
Popular Music: The Key Concepts by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781138680920Now in an updated fourth edition, this popular A-Z student handbook provides a comprehensive survey of key ideas and concepts in popular music culture. With new and expanded entries on genres and subgenres, the text comprehensively examines the social and cultural aspects of popular music, taking into account the digital music revolution and changes in the way that music is manufactured, marketed and delivered. With further reading and listening included throughout, Popular Music: The Key Concepts is an essential reference text for all students studying the social and cultural dimensions of popular music.
American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to mp3 by Call Number: Gorgas Music Collection, ML3477 .S73 2007ISBN: 9780195300536Using well-chosen examples, insightful commentaries, and an engaging writing style, this text traces the development of jazz, blues, country, rock, Motown, hip-hop, and other popular styles, highlighting the contributions of diverse groups to the creation of distinctly American styles. It combines an in-depth treatment of the music itself--including discussions of stylistic elements and analyses of musical examples--with solid coverage of the music's attendant historical, social, and cultural circumstances.
Blackface Nation: Race, Reform, and Identity in American Popular Music, 1812-1925 by Call Number: EBookPublication Date: 2017-04-18Blackface Nation elucidates the central irony in America's musical history: much of the music that has been interpreted as black, authentic, and expressive was invented, performed, and enjoyed by people who believed strongly in white superiority. At the same time, the music often depicted as white, repressed, and boringly bourgeois was often socially and racially inclusive, committed to reform, and devoted to challenging the immoralities at the heart of America's capitalist order.
Selected Books:
Atari Age: The Emergence of Video Games in America by Call Number: eBookIn Atari Age, Michael Newman charts the emergence of video games in America from ball-and-paddle games to hits like Space Invaders and Pac-Man, describing their relationship to other amusements and technologies and showing how they came to be identified with the middle class, youth, and masculinity. Newman shows that the "new media" of video games were understood in varied, even contradictory ways. They were family fun (but mainly for boys), better than television (but possibly harmful), and educational (but a waste of computer time). Drawing on a range of sources--including the games and their packaging; coverage in the popular, trade, and fan press; social science research of the time; advertising and store catalogs; and representations in movies and television--Newman describes the series of cultural contradictions through which the identity of the emerging medium worked itself out.
Hot Tubs and Pac-Man: Gender and the Early Video Game Industry in the United States (1950s-1980s) by Publication Date: 2020This work looks at the gendered nature of the US video gaming industry. Although there were attempts to incorporate women into development roles and market towards them as players, the creation of video games and the industry began in a world strongly gendered male. Many of the threads that began in the early years continued or have parallels with the modern video game industry. The industry continues to struggle with gender relations in the workplace and with the strongly gendered male demographic that the industry perceives as its main market.
Gaming Representation: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games by Call Number: eBookGaming Representation examines portrayals of race, gender, and sexuality in a range of games, from casuals like Diner Dash, to indies like Journey and The Binding of Isaac, to mainstream games from the Grand Theft Auto, BioShock, Spec Ops, The Last of Us, and Max Payne franchises. Arguing that representation and identity function as systems in games that share a stronger connection to code and platforms than it may first appear, the contributors to this volume push gaming scholarship to new levels of inquiry, theorizing, and imagination.
Video Games As Culture by Call Number: eBookVideo games are becoming an increasingly central part of our cultural lives, impacting on various aspects of everyday life such as our consumption, communities, and identity formation. Drawing on new and original empirical data--including interviews with gamers, as well as key representatives from the video game industry, media, education, and cultural sector--Video Games as Culture not only considers contemporary video game culture, but also explores how video games provide important insights into the modern nature of digital and participatory culture, patterns of consumption and identity formation, late modernity, and contemporary political rationalities.
Queer Game Studies by Call Number: eBookVideo games have developed into a rich, growing field at many top universities, but they have rarely been considered from a queer perspective. Immersion in new worlds, video games seem to offer the perfect opportunity to explore the alterity that queer culture longs for, but often sexism and discrimination in gamer culture steal the spotlight. Queer Game Studies provides a welcome corrective, revealing the capacious albeit underappreciated communities that are making, playing, and studying queer games.
