Research by Subject: Africana Studies
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LC Class Number Guide
| DT 1- 3415 | History: Africa |
| E185 | History: America, African American |
| HT | Communities. Classes. Race |
| PR 9340-9348 | African literature (English) |
Reference Sources
Recent Africana Studies Theses Search
Encyclopedias
African American encyclopedia
The encyclopedia includes brief entries, signed articles, and essays that focus on more general topics. Coverage of topics fall into several categories: Africa, Africa and African American activism, and African dance and music, along with articles that reflect a greater emphasis on the African diaspora; Politics; Statistical tables and charts; Photos; a bibliography of "Web Sites and Digital Resources," and more.
CALL NUMBER: Ref E185 .A253 2001 v.1-10
Encyclopedia of African-American culture and history : the Black experience in the Americas
With 1,300 entries covering the African diaspora, anti-colonial movements, economic condition, military experiences, and topics in the Caribbean. The central focus is on the experience of African-Americans throughout North and South America, although the people, concepts, and events associated with the U.S. predominate. Biographical entries profile political and public figures as well as artists, writers, and musicians. Each entry concludes with a list of cross-references and a bibliography. An introductory article provides a background history of Africa. Volume Six is devoted to a selection of primary documents, an appendix with numerous tables of statistics and lists on all topics, and a comprehensive index.
CALL NUMBER: Ref E185 .E54 2006 v.1-6
Encyclopedia of African American history, 1896 to the present : from the age of segregation to the twenty-first century
"Focusing on the making of African American society from the 1896 "separate but equal" ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson up to the contemporary period, this encyclopedia traces the transition from the Reconstruction Era to the age of Jim Crow, the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Migration, the Brown ruling that overturned Plessy, the Civil Rights Movement, and the ascendant influence of African-American culture on the American cultural landscape."
CALL NUMBER: Ref E185 .E5453 2009 v. 1-5
Encyclopedia of African-American literature
"This reference provides entries on important African-American literary works and writers, as well as thematic and contextual entries on movements, publications, ideas, and major critical and theoretical schools and scholars. Entries cover the entire spectrum of the Africa-American literary tradition, from the 18th century writings of Phillis Wheatley to today's best-selling and emerging authors."
CALL NUMBER: Ref PS153.N5 E48 2007
Encyclopedia of African history
"Coverage encompasses well-established topics in addition to social, economic, linguistic, anthropological, and political subjects undergoing new analysis. The whole continent (not just sub-Sahara) is addressed, from earliest times to the present, and the reference is grounded in the more enlightened approaches to African history that began after World War II."
CALL NUMBER: Ref DT20 .E53 2005 v.1-3
Encyclopedia of Black Studies
Organized alphabetically, the nearly 500 individual entries offer a concise, yet detailed, subject overview. Each entry is signed and includes a brief list of suggestions for further reading. Supplementary appendices include a chronology tracing the evolution of Black Studies.
CALL NUMBER: Ref E185 .E554 2005
Subject Dictionaries
A Dictionary of African Mythology
Part of the Oxford Reference series, this collection covers the entire continent, from the mouth of the Nile to the Cape of Good Hope.
CALL NUMBER:
http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/BOOK_SEARCH.html?book=t68
Handbooks
The African studies companion : a guide to information sources
"compact, timesaving, and annotated guide to print and electronic information sources in the African studies field."
CALL NUMBER: RefBib DT19.8 .Z45 2003
http://www.africanstudiescompanion.com/online/
Africa Contemporary Record
Includes essays on current issues, country-by-country review, primary documents, and tables covering social and economic affairs. Latest volume in Reference Room, earlier volumes on 2nd floor.
CALL NUMBER: Ref DT1 .L43
Other Sources
The African American national biography
"history through a mosaic of the lives of thousands of individuals, illuminating the abiding influence of persons of African descent on the life of this nation from the arrival of Esteban in Spanish Florida in 1529 through to notable black citizens of the present day."
CALL NUMBER: Ref E185.96 .A4466 2008 v.1-8
Atlas of African-American history
chronicling significant events in African-American history, with photos, maps, graphs, etc.
CALL NUMBER: Ref E185 .C55 2007
Databases & Articles
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Websites & News
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/africa/
Columbia University's collection of African Studies Internet Resources is an on-going compilation of electronic bibliographic resources and research materials on Africa available on the global Internet, created under the purview of the African Studies Department of Columbia University Libraries. Electronic resources from Africa are organized by region and country.
Africa,South of the Sahara: Slecetd Internet Resources
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/guide.html
Published by Karen Fung, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. A comprehensive web site for African studies research.
An A-Z of African Studies on the Internet
http://staff.lib.msu.edu/limb/a-z/az.html
An alphabetical list of selected Internet resources on Africa. Includes a link to the African e-Journals Project. (http://africa.msu.edu/AEJP/) - A project of the Michigan State University African Studies Center, MSU Libraries, and MATRIX
H-Africa
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~africa
Links to archives of debates and group forums on the H-Africa listserv, conference reports, thematic essays, tables of contents from African studies journals, and other information.
http://allafrica.com/
posting over 1000 stories daily in English and French and offering a diversity of multi-lingual streaming programming as well as over 900,000 articles in a searchable archive (which includes the archive of Africa News Service dating from 1997).
Newspapers from around the world
http://library.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx
Includes current 60 day coverage of African newspapers from Kenya, South Africa, Namibia, Nigeria, Sudan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.
Additional Information
Primary Resources and more:
Library of Congress featured Podcast Series, Voices from the Days of Slavery: Stories, Songs and Memoriesincludes oral histories and interviews with African Americans who endured the hardships of slavery. The podcasts are drawn from several collections in the American Folklife Center Archives, one of the preeminent audio-visual repositories of national and international folklife, history and cultural expressions.
16th to Early 20th Century Maps of Africa - this site features digital copies of 113 antique maps of Africa and accompanying text dating from the mid 16th Century to the early 20th Century. All scanned maps are authentic and originally collected by the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies (or the Africana Library) at Northwestern University.
The Chicago Defender newspaper "was a proponent of The Great Migration, the move of over 1.5 million African-Americans from the segregated South to the industrial North from 1915 to 1925. It reported on the Red Summer race riots of 1919, and editorialized for anti-lynching legislation and the integration of blacks into the U.S. military. This newspaper also supported the aviation career of Bessie Coleman, the first African-American female pilot, and promoted the writing of Langston Hughes and Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks.
Social and Cultural History: Letters and Diaries Online offers two distinct but interrelated utilities. First, it brings together, on a single cross-searchable platform, the entire family of letter and diary databases that are available exclusively by purchase or subscription through Alexander Street Press. Currently includes the featured search of US Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965 - Browse letters, diaries, and oral histories from both black and white participants in the early years of the Civil Rights movement in the United States.