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Spanish and Latin American Literature

Research Pathfinder

 

Keyword Searching
LC Subject Headings
Databases
Reference Materials
Style Manuals
Web Sites
Selected Books
More Help

 

Spanish literature focuses on literary works produced in Spain. These works fall into three categories by language: Castilian, Catalan, and Galician. Latin American literature refers to works of the Spanish-speaking countries of the Western Hemisphere. This literature dates back to works of Native American civilizations conquered by the Spaniards.


Keyword Searching on OASys and LINK+
OASys is Oxy's Catalog, which lists books, journals, online resources, and other library holdings. The LINK+  catalog combines the holdings of over 30 participating libraries.

To get started, try a keyword search in OASys. Keyword searching is less specific than searching Library of Congress subject headings, but may provide more results. Need more? Click over to LINK+ and continue your searching there. Need even more? WorldCat includes over 54 million entries from more than 45,000 libraries. You may also place Interlibrary Loan requests. (Slower than LINK+). Below are a few sample keyword searches for you to start with. Be creative, come up with your own, and use keywords from the works you find to improve your future searches.

Suggested Keyword Searches:

keyword: Gabriel Garcia Marquez and criticism

keyword: Galdós,Benito and "historical fiction"

keyword: Cervantes and "Don Quijote"

keyword: Chicano liter*

keyword: Spanish drama and "golden age"

 

 

For more assistance with searching for books, please see Finding Books.

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Library of Congress Subject Heading Searching on OASys and LINK+

OASys is Oxy's Catalog, which lists books, journals, online resources, and other library holdings. The LINK+  catalog combines the holdings of over 30 participating libraries.

LC Subject Headings are classifications agreed upon by all US libraries and be an invaluable tool when you are searching for information. While keyword searches may bring up more titles, LC Subject searching can bring up more accurate lists of works specifically related to your field of study. Need more? Click over to LINK+ and continue your searching there. Need even more? WorldCat includes over 54 million entries from more than 45,000 libraries. You may also place Interlibrary Loan requests. (Slower than LINK+)

Suggested Subject Headings searches:
 

LC Subject: Spanish literature -- Classical period, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism

LC Subject: Spanish poetry -- History and criticism

LC Subject: Spanish American literature -- 20th century

LC Subject: Latin American literature -- Periodicals

LC Subject: Latin American literature -- Women authors -- History and criticism

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Searchable Databases
Articles provide a variety of information ranging from entertainment to scholarly research. To search for articles you use indexes or databases that may include more than one type of article.  Learn how to recognize and distinguish between the different types of publications (academic, popular, etc.) and select the articles that fit your need the best.
Selected Library Research Databases for (your subject): 

LitFinder  
Find the full text of 125,000 poems, 5000+ short stories, 2000+ essays, 1000+ plays, and nearly 2000 speeches. Citations or excerpts are available for 850,000 poems. Search or browse by author, genre, subject, keyword or more
 
MLA Bibliography (FirstSearch)  
Index to scholarly materials published worldwide in literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore.

Literary Reference Center  
A literary reference database that provides a broad spectrum of reference information from antiquity to the present day. LRC is a completely full-text database that combines information from over 1,000 monographs, literary encyclopedias and reference works, hundreds of literary journals, and other sources.

For more assistance with searching our databases, please see Finding Articles.

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Reference

The following resources are useful during paper drafting.

 

websites

Spanish Dictionaries Online
Oxford Reference Online
Spanish Grammar Exercises

Wordreference.com

reference books

Sixteenth-century Spanish writers
Twentieth-century Spanish fiction writers 
Castilian writers, 1400-1500 
The feminist encyclopedia of Spanish literature 
Encyclopedia of Latin American literature 
Chicano writers. Third series
 
Biographical dictionary of Hispanic literature in the United States

 

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Style Manuals

Style Manuals will help you cite your sources and keep consistent formatting.

For a comprehensive list of style manuals, please browse the Library Style Manual Webpage.

Modern Language Association (MLA) Format

American Psychological Association (APA) Format

American Anthropological Association (AAA) Format

Chicago (Turabian) Style Format

 

Occidental College Online Writing Center
This elaborate writing guide will help you formulate paper topics, construct theses, create outlines and cite sources as part of paper drafting.

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Web Sites
Web sites may include personal opinion, deliberate hoax, credible information and academic resources. It is very important for you to critically assess a web site and make sure it is scholarly and unbiased for your research.

Tired of Googling? try a different search engine or a subject directory found on our Public Internet Search Tools page.

For example, go to the
Librarian's Index to the Internet, and try these searches: 

(spanish poetry)                  (latin american literature)

Below are just a few of the webpages discussing (your subject) in its various forms.
Latin American Network Information Center

Voice of the Shuttle - Spanish & Portuguese
Spanish literature (Center for the Liberal Arts, University of Virginia)

Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes 

Iberian Language and Literature Web

 

For more assistance with searching for web sites, please see Finding Public Web Pages.

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Selected Books

Below are a few of the books available from Oxy's library, organized by LC subject heading.

 

Latin American Women Authors

Knives and angels : women writers in Latin America

Mujer y cultura en la colonia hispanoamericana

Reading the body politic : feminist criticism and Latin American women writers

 

Spanish Literature- History and Criticism 

Spanish literature. From origins to 1700

Spanish literature. 1700 to the present

 

Latin American Poetry

Latin American revolutionary poetry

Woman who has sprouted wings : poems by contemporary Latin American women poets

 

Chicano Literature

Criticism in the borderlands : studies in Chicano literature

Chicana critical issues

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Page prepared by Krystal Gibson, '06

Databases
Finding Books
Finding Periodicals
Finding Articles
Other Resources
BY TITLE
BY TOPIC
------ Frequently Used ------
1. OASys
2. Link+
3. FirstSearch
4. ProQuest
5. EBSCO
6. LexisNexis
7. WilsonWeb
8. Gale
9. ABC-CLIO
By Title or Author
By Topic
New in Our Library
Book Reviews
OASys
Get Help
By Title
By Topic
Periodicals Lists
OASys
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By Title or Citation
By Topic
Online Articles
Scholarly Articles
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Finding Public Web Pages
Finding DVDs and Videos
Finding Images and Multimedia
Special Collections
Oxy Music Library
Nearby Libraries
OASys
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Page last edited on 12/16/2011.
Reviewed by Marla E. Peppers on 08/28/2006.
 

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