Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement

Getting Started: Encyclopedias & Dictionaries

• African American Studies Center Online  Covers all aspects of African American studies
• Encyclopedia of Black Studies (online and print)
• Encyclopedia of African American Society (online and print)
• Cambridge Companion to the Harlem Renaissance (online)
  George Hutchinson. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
• Encyclopedia of African American society
• Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Ref. NX512.3  .A35 E53 2004 PRINT)
  Cary D. Wintz, Paul Finkelman, editors.  New York: Routledge, 2004.
• The Harlem Renaissance: a Gale critical companion (Ref. PS153 .N5 H245 2003)
  Foreword by Trudier Harris-Lopez. Detroit: Gale, 2003.
• The Encyclopedia of the Harlem Literary Renaissance (Ref. PS153 .N5 B675 2006 PRINT)
  Lois Brown. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
• Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Ref. PS153  .N5 A24 2003 PRINT)
  Aberjhani and Sandra L. West ; foreword by Clement Alexander Price.  New York: Facts on File, 2003.

Dictionary of Literary Biography (online)  Often the first place to go to find authoritative biographical and critical essays on “the world’s most influential literary figures from all eras and genres.”

• Afro-American Writers from the Harlem Renaissance to 1940, Vol. 51
• The Black Aesthetic Movement. Vol. 8

Finding books  

Search Tab - The library catalog

• Books on your topic: Search Books and More, placing the phrase in quotation marks: "harlem renaissance"  "black arts movement"
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Literary Reviews

and articles contemporary to the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement

Historical New York Times

Readers' Guide Retrospective- links to articles published in general interest magazines during the early and middle part of the 20th century

Books and Movies Reviews Guide – a topic guide to find more resources

Finding articles

Important: How can I get an article? is the key.

Some databases have full text. For others, click on FindIt to determine if there are online links to the article; if it is in a journal the library subscribes to; or if you need to use Interlibrary Loan / Iliad - to obtain the article. 

Humanities Full Text (Ebsco)
Includes articles in more than 300 periodicals in literature, archaeology, art , classics, film, folklore, journalism, linguistics, music, the performing arts, philosophy, religion, world history and world literature. Includes book reviews.

Literature Online (Chadwyck)
A fully searchable library of more than 350,000 works of English and American poetry, drama and prose, 168 full-text literature journals, and other key criticism and reference resources.

MLA International Bibliography (ProQuest)
Consists of research pertaining to literature, language, linguistics, and folklore. Includes citations to articles from over 3000 journals and series published internationally, as well as monographs, collections, and various types of reference works.

Ethnic NewsWatch (ProQuest)
A comprehensive full text database of the newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press.

Literature Criticism Online
LCO is an extensive full text compilation of literary commentary reaching back 30 years, covering centuries of critiques on authors and their works that span all time periods, types of literature and regions. The cross searchable collection brings together Drama Criticism, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Poetry Criticism and Short Story Criticism, providing criticism on the major authors, dramatists and poets.

Need more information? Go to the English Subject Guide for articles, biography, reviews, newspapers and more...

Find biographical and contextual information

African American Studies Center Online  Covers all aspects of African American studies

Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete Online
The Dictionary of Literary Biography print series is often the first place to go to find authoritative biographical and critical essays on “the world’s most influential literary figures from all eras and genres.”

Literature Resource Center (Gale)
Biographies, bibliographies and analysis of over 115,000 authors. In-depth coverage of the most studied authors.

 Literature Online (Chadwyck) 
 In addition to journal articles, LION contains biographical and other key reference resources. 

Need more information? Go to the English Subject Guide for more resources.

Citing your sources

Print and web style guides

• Research and documentation online: MLA -- Humanities
• MLA Electronic Style
• MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. Print copy at the  Information desk -- LB 2369 G53 2009