Your research assignment for ENGL 432 asks you to identify and engage with one or more ecologically resonant sources (not literary criticism) that are related to an environmental topic of your choosing and roughly contemporaneous (think 30 years or less) to your chosen literary text.
This page highlights several broad strategies you can try for identifying both important topics from other disciplines of interest to modernists and the source(s) you will use in your analysis.
If you're not sure yet what you're interested in or you can't decide where to focus, you might want to just browse through journals of the time to see what catches your eye.
Collins Library provides access to many journals from the modernist era and the Modernist Journals Project (linked below) can connect you to the full text of many others. Consider using a resource such as Literary Research and British Modernism to help you identify influential titles and then search for them using Primo's journal search.
Collins Library provides access to the full archives of the Times of London, going back to 1785. Historical newspapers can be useful for identify important topics and events, locating book reviews, and more.
JSTOR contains thousands of full-text articles from journals across the sciences, humanities, and social sciences, and in particular is known for providing online access to extensive archives of back issues of journals. For most journals, the runs go back to the late nineteenth century. As such, it is particularly helpful for historical research.
Tips for using JSTOR:
Use Advanced Search and limit features whenever possible. Subset limits, date limits*, subject searches, etc. are all useful time savers. Search tips for other databases also apply in JSTOR.
Additional Database:
The Isis Cumulative Bibliography is a predecessor to the History of Science, Technology & Medicine database. The volumes available for browsing here are categorized bibliographical entries that appeared in annual or semi-annual bibliographies that were published as part of the journal Isis between volume 1 (1913) and volume 66 (1975). Print editions of the ISIS Cumulative Bibliography are also available at Collins Library.
IsisCB is divided into several sections. People and institutions as subjects of study are simply arranged alphabetically by name, with citations listed beneath each entry. Subjects, periods, and civilizations are arranged in a subject classification. You'll need to think more broadly than when you search other databases.
Quick Tips:
HathiTrust contains millions of digital books, journals, government documents, and other volumes, all digitized from research libraries. The collection includes both public domain and in-copyright works across a full range of subjects. Over half of the content is in English, but hundreds of languages are represented, including large amounts of material in German, French, Chinese, Russian and Spanish. Although all items are discoverable, viewability depends on the rights status of the individual item.
Ways to search HathiTrust:
For more information on the different search types, visit HathiTrust's Search Tips page.
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Use Primo to find resources on your topic at Collins Library and beyond. You will have plenty of time to request materials via Summit or ILL for your project, so start early!