Background Info from Academic Level Electronic Sources
Background sources are especially useful when you are just starting your research, but they can also help you throughout the process. These types of sources can provide a brief summary of a topic, explain important theories, define commonly used terms, and provide biographical information on important people in the field.
Research Tip: Search for broad-scope topics, theories, terms, or people in these types of sources. For example:
- Michel Foucault
- gender non-conforming
- social constructionism
- CQ Researcher This link opens in a new window
Full-text detailed reports on controversial social, economic, political, educational, health, environmental, technology, and current topics. Each report includes an abstract, overview, background summary, current situation, outlook, special focus, chronology, pro/con, and bibliography. - Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window Database of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. Provides searchable full-text e-book versions of over 3,500 reference works, including multi-volume encyclopedias, biographical collections, business plan handbooks, company history compilations, consumer health references, and specialized handbooks, dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc. in a wide range of subject areas.
- Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window Covers a wide range of controversial topics and results may include sources such as magazine, newspaper or journal articles, government documents, political position papers, public policy statements, legal and legislative materials, pamphlets, statistical data, biographies, court cases, and links websites.
- Oxford Reference This link opens in a new windowCollection of 260+ Reference books; including dictionaries, encyclopedias, and books of quotations, includes resources in a wide range of fields.
Background Info from Books
Enclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered History in America by ISBN: 0684314274Publication Date: 2004Survey of more than 400 years of lesbian and gay history and culture in the United States, presented through over 500 alphabetically arranged entries.
Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender by Call Number: Full Text OnlineISBN: 9780028659602Publication Date: 2007
Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) HistoryCall Number: Full Text OnlineISBN: 9780684325545Publication Date: 2019
Queer Cinema in America: an Encyclopedia of LGBTQ Films, Characters, and Stories by ISBN: 9781440867163Publication Date: 2020Taking us from a time when LGBTQ characters were often represented as either caricatures or figures of farce, this lively yet authoritative reference explores the sea change ushered in by such stars
The Queer Encyclopedia of the Visual Arts by Call Number: 5th Floor South N72.H64 Q44 2004ISBN: 1573441910Publication Date: 2004A comprehensive work showcasing the enormous contribution of gay, lesbian, transgender and queer artists to painting, drawing, photography, printmaking, sculpture and architecture.
The Book of Pride by Call Number: Basement North HQ73.3.U6 F86 2019ISBN: 9780062571700Publication Date: 2019Captures the true story of the gay rights movement from the 1960s to the present, through richly detailed, stunning interviews with the leaders, activists, and ordinary people who witnessed the movement and made it happen.
Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature of the United States by Call Number: 3rd Floor North PS153.S39 E53 2009ISBN: 9780313348594Publication Date: 2009In this two-volume work, hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries survey contemporary lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer American literature and its social contexts.
Gay Lives by Call Number: Basement North HQ75.2 .A537 2012ISBN: 9780500251904Publication Date: 2012Presents a fascinating portrait of gay men and women throughout history that reveals the full diversity of gay lives as lived in their times.
Restoried Selves: Autobiographies of Queer Asian/Pacific American Activists by ISBN: 1136572643Publication Date: 2013-04-03Presents the first-person accounts of 20 activists--life stories that work against common stereotypes, shattering misconceptions and dispelling misinformation.
Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability by ISBN: 9780814757123Publication Date: 2006A bold and contemporary discourse of the intersection of disability studies and queer studies.
The Ethics of Opting Out: Queer Theory's Defiant Subjects by Call Number: HQ76.25 .R88 2017ISBN: 9780231180900Publication Date: 2017Ruti highlights the ways in which queer theory's desire to opt out of normative society rewrites ethical theory and practice in genuinely innovative ways at the same time as she resists turning antinormativity into a new norm.
Feminism Meets Queer Theory by Call Number: HQ1190 .F442 1997ISBN: 9780253332783Publication Date: 1997Focuses on the encounters of feminist and queer theories, on the ways in which basic terms such as - sex, gender, and sexuality change meaning as they move from one body of theory to another.
No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive by Call Number: HQ76.25 .E34 2004ISBN: 9780822333692Publication Date: 2004In No Future, Edelman urges queers to abandon the stance of accommodation and accede to their status as figures for the force of a negativity that he links with irony, jouissance, and, ultimately, the death drive itself.
Queer Indigenous Studies: Critical Interventions in Theory, Politics, and Literature by Call Number: 5th Floor South E98.S48 Q84 2011ISBN: 9780816529070Publication Date: 2011Rooted in the Indigenous Americas and the Pacific, and drawing on disciplines ranging from literature to anthropology, contributors to Queer Indigenous Studies call Indigenous GLBTQ2 movements and allies to center an analysis that critiques the relationship between colonialism and heteropatriarchy.
Queer Theory, Gender Theory: An Instant Primer by Call Number: HQ76.25 .W55 2004ISBN: 9781555837983Publication Date: 2004A one-stop, no-nonsense introduction to the work of postmodern theorists like Jacques Derrida, Michael Foucault and Judith Butler that has redefined women's, gay and gender studies.
The History of Sexuality by Call Number: New Book Shelf HQ12 .F6813 1990ISBN: 9780679724698Publication Date: 1978Michel Foucult offers an iconoclastic exploration of why we feel compelled to continually analyze and discuss sex, and of the social and mental mechanisms of power that cause us to direct the questions of what we are to what our sexuality is.
Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity by Call Number: HQ1154 .B88 1990ISBN: 9780415900430Publication Date: 1989Ever since feminist theory introduced the distinction between sex and gender, the question of what it means to be a woman has preoccupied feminist thought. In GenderTrouble Judith Butler questions whether it is possible to "be" a woman at all or, for that matter, any gender.
Queer Theory: An Introduction by Call Number: HQ76.25 .J34 1996ISBN: 9780814742334Publication Date: 1997In this groundbreaking work, Jagose provides a clear and concise explanation of queer theory, tracing it as part of an intriguing history of same-sex love over the last century.
Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation by Call Number: HQ1426 .C56 1999ISBN: 9780896086050Publication Date: 1999In interconnected essays, Clare links her life to the "rednecks" and clearcuts she grew up among, the "freak shows" of the nineteenth century, and the "transgender warriors" of today. Her intelligence and wit shine through her ruminations on cerebral palsy, child abuse, and her love of nature, and the connections among the histories of disabled people, women, and gay/lesbian/bi/trans people.
The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life by Call Number: HQ32 .W367 1999ISBN: 9780684865294Publication Date: 1999In this essay on the dangers of normality, Michael Warner sends a warning shot to the gay rights movement, which has cleaned up its image in order to blend in with the mainstream. He presents an analysis of the politics of shame and the stigma of sexual identity.
How to Do the History of Homosexuality by Call Number: HQ76 .H28 2002ISBN: 0226314472Publication Date: 2002Halperin offers a vigorous defense of the historicist approach to the construction of sexuality, an approach that sets a premium on the description of other societies in all their irreducible specificity and does not force them to fit our own conceptions of what sexuality is or ought to be.
Epistemology of the Closet, Updated with a New Preface by ISBN: 0520254066Publication Date: 2008Working from classic texts of European and American writers (including Melville, James, Nietzsche, Proust, and Wilde) Sedgwick analyzes a turn-of-the-century historical moment in which sexual orientation became as important a demarcation of personhood as gender had been for centuries.
Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity by Call Number: HQ76.25 .M86 2009ISBN: 9780814757277Publication Date: 2009Drawing on the work of Ernst Bloch, José Esteban Muñoz recalls the queer past for guidance in presaging its future.
Female Masculinity by ISBN: 9781478002703Publication Date: 2018In this quintessential work of queer theory, Jack Halberstam takes aim at the protected status of male masculinity and shows that female masculinity has offered a distinct alternative to it for well over two centuries.
