Humanities Librarian
Get Started: Suggested Resources
You can find more resources in the tabs menu, but below is a short list of some of the top go-to resources for this course.
Recommended Databases
You can use the databases below to find scholarly journal articles related to American philosophy.
- Philosopher's IndexThe Philosopher's Index is a bibliographic database with informative, author-written abstracts covering scholarly research in all areas of philosophy. The literature covered goes back to 1940 and includes journal articles, books, book chapters such as contributions to an anthology, and book reviews. The Philosopher's Index monitors over 550 journals from more than 40 countries and is updated quarterly. Extensive indexing includes personal and proper names along with subject terms; there is also the capability to search for the authors of book reviews.
- JSTORArchive of selected scholarly journals in anthropology, art, art history, communication studies, criminology, ecology, economics, education, English, film studies, foreign languages and literatures, geography, geology, history, mathematics, music, philosophy, political science, public and international affairs, religion, social work, sociology, statistics, theatre, and other humanities and social sciences. Find more information.
Recommended Books and eBooks
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy 10V by Call Number: B51 .R68 1998
The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America by Call Number: HV6779 .S63 2012eb
Search for Books
Use the search box below to look for books, videos, journals, and other items held in Randall Library's collections. Note that this search can't be used to find journal articles--for that you'll need to either use a database or go to the library's main search at https://library.uncw.edu/.
Because the language of philosophy is not precise, you will want to try keyword searches on the concepts you are researching. Retrieve words with variant endings by using an *. For example, intellect* retrieves records containing any of the following words: intellect, intellectual, intellectuals, intellectualism. Then, look at the subject headings field of the records that seem relevant to discover new terms to search. Basic subject headings to use when searching for materials related to your project on American philosophy and scientific research are:
- Inventions -- United States
- Science -- Philosophy -- History
- Philosophy and Science
- Science -- Social aspects -- United States
- Science and Civilization
- Technology and State
- Science and State
- Technology -- History -- United States
- Science -- History -- United States
For the project on anti-intellectualism, try:
- Education -- Social Aspects -- United States
- Intellectual life -- United States
- Intellectuals -- United States
- Learning and Scholarship
For the final project, try:
- Allegiance
- Responsibility
- Christian ethics
- Social Contract
- Citizenship
- Social Ethics
- Civil society [specific religious, ethnic, or other group identities]
- Civics
If you know of specific philosophers who wrote about the topics you are researching, search their names (last name first) as authors and as subjects. To find even more, search the name as a keyword. This will also retrieve books in which the name appears in the contents notes of book or video records.
CITATION CYCLING
When you find a useful resource, be sure to check its bibliography for additional resources. This technique will often find new information sources that even the most complete online searches miss. Then, when you go to those resources, look in their bibliographies for even more.