Proquest One Literature

One database to rule them all, and, in citations, find them!

The website banner for the OneLiterature databaseThe University Library now provides access to Proquest One Literature. This exciting new acquisition will provide students, faculty, and staff with access to 3 million literature citations from thousands of journals, monographs, dissertations, and more than 500,000 primary works! These include rare and obscure texts, multiple versions, and non-traditional sources like comics, theatre performances, and author readings.

If this sounds like a dizzying amount of content, never fear! One Literature has a user-friendly interface that allows you to browse and search amongst criticism, primary texts, and reference works like The Routledge Companion to Asian American and Pacific Islander Literature, The Cambridge Companion to African American Theatre, The International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature, and many more!

Banner showing frequently viewed authors and literature collections on the One Literature databaseIf you’d like to learn more about and dive into the works of a single writer, you’re in luck! One Literature greets each visitor with a banner of prominent authors and poets, including Jane Austen, Joy Harjo, and William Carlos Williams. Selecting a specific author will take you to a biography of the writer, direct links to their primary works, pertinent criticism, relevant reference works, links to authors from the same literary movement, and even videos and recordings of adaptations and readings. These author pages will provide wonderful guidance and resources to students and faculty across the English curriculum but may be particularly useful as references for Major Authors classes.

If you’d prefer to browse by topic or subject, or just casually explore, One Literature also allows you to browse by literary movement, literary period, and Literature Collections, which bring together works that showcase unique, definitive electronic collections or demonstrate the breadth of topical electronic collections available on One Literature. Prominent Literature Collections include the African Writers Series, Digitale Bibliothek Deutscher Klassiker [a digital library of classic German works], and Teatro Español del Siglo de Oro [a collection of Spanish theatre from the Golden Age].

If that were not already enough, One Literature also features an expansive array of audio-visual content, including poetry readings, Shakespeare audioplays, and BBC literary adaptations like Emma, Madame Bovary, and David Copperfield.

So, what are you waiting for? Head into to One Literature and start exploring! We can’t wait to hear about what you discover!

To learn more about One Literature or to schedule a demonstration for your class, please contact Matthew Roberts (mjrii@illinois.edu) or Paula Carns (pcarns@illinois.edu).

 

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UIUC Poetry Spotlight: Isaac Willis

For today’s celebration of National Poetry Month, Isaac Willis, a student in UIUC’s Creative Writing MFA program, reads Jericho Brown’s “Say Thank You Say I’m Sorry.”

Watch Willis’ reading on our Instagram and read his reflections below:

To me, this is a perfect poem. Maybe that’s because I may or may not have taken a field trip to a slaughterhouse. (My alma mater, Monmouth College, nearly touched one of the largest slaughterhouses in the Midwest.) Maybe that’s because I want another gimlet, another good book. It’s also the perfect poem for America right now. Written during a time of racial reckoning, of an international pandemic, of quarantine, the poem subtly navigates the politics of place and being in it. “I have PTSD / About the Lord,” says Brown’s speaker. But then, “God save the people who work / In grocery stores.” Audre Lorde famously said, “Poetry is not a luxury.” She also said, in the same essay, “it is the skeleton architecture of our lives.”

I can’t help but feel, when I read this Jericho Brown poem, that something new and necessary is being architected. I naively thought, a year ago, when the University and the world were effectively locked down, that staying shut up inside would make me a better person. If anything, it has exacerbated my fears and anxieties and biases even more. I texted something along those lines to a friend awhile back, and he responded, “Or you are a better person, and you don’t like what the new light has shown you.” Maybe so. Maybe grief, when it’s so thick you can touch it, is a balm. Maybe I’d rather be able to sit and talk with my friend, while we sip lavender gin. Maybe it’s a privilege to say so. Thank you. I’m sorry.

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Encyclopedia of Modernism Trial – Through Nov. 16, 2018

Screenshot of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism headerHello all,

The Literatures and Languages Library is running a trial of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism until November 16, 2018.

The Encyclopedia of Modernism has 1,900 articles from experts in the field, and over 100 images. The General Editor, Professor Stephen Ross (former President of the Modernist Studies Association), and over 1500 contributors worked to build a comprehensive resource on modernism.

Content is cross-referenced and covers eight key subject areas (Literature, Architecture, Visual Arts, Music, Dance, Theatre, Film, and Intellectual Currents). Articles on people include a biography and explanation of theories, a list of works, and further reading. Overviews of concepts include an abstract, definitions and history of the concept or term, related terms and concepts, major periods, selected manifestos, and further reading.

The advanced search option allows researchers to limit searches by subject and use Boolean operators (and shortcuts like +, -, and &).

Screenshot of the advanced search form

The browse options allow researchers to peruse subjects (the eight mentioned above), movements (including Abstract Expressionism, Bauhaus, Cubism, Dada, Expressionism, Futurism, Montage, and Social Realism), and places (Modernism in Africa, Asia, and more).

Please email Paula Carns (pcarns@illinois.edu) with any questions or feedback.

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“Idea to Project: Collaborative Humanities Research.”

Overview:
From the moment a scholar embarks on a research project to its eventual point of completion or further continuation, she or he would have interacted with information professionals and fellow scholars in the field, worked with library and archival collections and a multitude of electronic resources and technologies. Although much is written about the end-result of such a journey, understanding the research process itself remains an exciting area of scholarship. Each Research Spotlight will highlight a scholar’s work and the author will discuss the work by addressing the following:

What factors and interests led to this research project?
What resources (people and materials) were critical to completing this manuscript?
What opportunities and challenges did the scholar encounter in the research process?
What suggestions does the scholar have for emerging scholars in this field of study?

Prof. Mara Wade (Germanic Languages & Literatures) and her research team will be the speakers.

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New Journal: Révue des Études Proustiennes

The Classiques Garnier Publishing House announced the first issue of Révue des Études Proustiennes, a new bi-annual journal devoted to themes and special issues on all aspects of the work of the French author, Marcel Proust. The inaugural issue includes articles by top scholars including Geneviève Henrot Sostero and Florence Lautel-Ribstein. Opening with a chapter on methods, the volume examines titles, semiotics, semantics, orality, lexical challenges in various languages, and intertextuality, and ends with the most complete and up-to-date bibliography of translations of Proust’s works. Current issues can be found in the Literatures and Languages Library’s serial collection in room 200.

The Literatures and Languages Library subscribes to a number of journals on Proust:

The Bulletin Marcel Proust, published by the Society of Marcel Proust’s Friends and Friends from Cambray, whose own review was the predecessor of the Bulletin, may be consulted both in print and online.

From Cambray, let’s move to the Netherlands where the well-known publisher Brill issues Marcel Proust Aujourd’hui, an international bilingual review whose goal is to interest scholars and ordinary readers through thematic and regular issues of the journal. Our library holds all the annual issues since it first appeared in 2003.

The Cahier Marcel Proust is another periodical of importance available in our library. Issued by the famous Gallimard Publisher of Paris, this journal covers the personality and work of Proust for the reader of his novels, the scholar, and the student. The Revue des Lettres Modernes. Marcel Proust was ordered by our librarians for the past decade, and is a useful resource for readers interested in criticism and interpretation.

These journals can either be found in the Literatures and Languages Library’s serial collection in room 200 or in the Proustiana Collection, now located in the center of room 225.

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New Exhibit: Gay and Lesbian Literature: The Early Years

The Literatures and Languages Library celebrates LBGTQ History Month by showcasing the works of some of the foremost gay and lesbian writers. In this new exhibit, Gay and Lesbian Literature: The Early Years, located in the Literatures and Languages Journals area within the Main Reading Room, we peer into the works of early LBGTQ writers, to highlight groundbreaking writings that, in those times, were downright controversial. We get a glimpse into their private world and the broad society in which they lived and wrote, making us to witness transformations that were underway for decades. The exhibit features Anglophone, English, and notable European writers to show the wide range of themes, genres, and literary techniques employed to express an identity that is authentic and self-determined.

In addition to the works featured in our exhibit, the Literatures and Languages Library features a wealth of reference titles and research resources on LGBTQ literature. They include:
Hugh Steven’s work The Cambridge Companion to Gay and Lesbian Writing (Cambridge: New York, 2011)
The Perils of Pedagogy: the Works of John Greyson, edited by Brenda Longfellow, Scott MacKenzie, and Thomas Waugh (Montreal&Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013) 
The American Isherwood edited by James J. Berg and Chris Freeman (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015).
Valery Rohy’s Lost Causes: Narrative, Etiology, and Queer Theory (2015) was just published by Oxford University Press.
The Cambridge History of Gay and Lesbian Literature edited by E.L. McCallum and Mikko Tuhkanen (New York: Cambridge University Press: 2014). 

Many subject terms are listed in the VuFind Catalog under the field “Topics”, giving users quick access to a wealth of related works. Some key subject headings to use in our catalog searching are Gays in Literature, Homosexuality in Literature, Gays’ Writings – History and Criticism. The result list can be filtered even further by using the “Narrow Your Search” options.

Please check out these Library resources and consult the Literatures and Languages Library staff members for further research assistance on LGBTQ literature and theory.

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Welcome to Fall 2014!

A belated welcome to new and old students and faculty alike for the Fall 2014 semester!  We hope that you are settling into the new school year, and the Literatures and Languages Library is here to help you with all of your research needs.  Our semester hours are as follows:

Monday-Thursday: 9 a.m. – 7 p.m.

Friday: 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Saturday – Sunday: 1 – 5 p.m.

If you can’t stop by 200 South Library in person, email one of our librarians, or explore our website with links to all of our library catalogs, electronic databases, and other valuable research resources at http://www.library.illinois.edu/llx/. 

Welcome!

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Edible Book Festival, April 1st

EdibleBookFestival The 9th Annual Edible Book Festival will take place on Tuesday, April 1, 2014 at the University YMCA in Champaign (1001 South Wright Street). According to the Library News & Events website,

“Edible art entries have a connection to books as shapes or content. Prizes will be awarded for the best culinary creations—which will be displayed, judged, and consumed. As I Lay FryingThe Bundt for Red OctoberThe Pie Who Loved Me, and The Lord of the Fries were among the entries last year.”

Each year the festival features a special category; this year the special category is Banned Books. This year’s Edible Book Festival is sponsored by the University Library. For more information, please visit the Edible Book Festival website.

 

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