Catalog      Databases

Session 5: Humanities Resources for Theo Students

Theological studies are interdisciplinary
"For God's sake, why bring God into everything?" --Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

Philosophy
"See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit" (Colossians 2:8)
Why Philosophy?: TPHL500

• Key reference sources
  • Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • New Dictionary of the History of Ideas (click on G for Gale Virtual Reference Library)
• Key database: Philosopher's Index (see under P)
• Helpful websites: Databases by subject (scroll down to Philosophy) and another listing
• Making sense of difficult philosophers
• Routledge Critical Thinkers: Bhabha, Derrida, Levinas, Spivak, Zizek....
• Guides for the Perplexed (Continuum): Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Heidegger...
• (finding books in series: use "Exact" search in the catalog)

History
A key distinction:

• Primary source: "A document, datum, or artifact that belongs to the era under examination and that offers the most direct access
  to the person or issues being studied."
  --James Bradley and Richard Muller, Church History: An Introduction to Research, Reference Works, and Methods (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1995), 39
• Secondary sources: "Offer information about an event but stand removed from it either in time or by a process of transmission of information." Ibid., 41.

Key reference sources

•  Online 
  • Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church [Ref BR95 .O8]
  • Encyclopedia of Ancient History
  • New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1st and 2nd eds, 1967 and 2003 [Ref BX841 .N44; online, see under G for Gale Virtual Reference Library)]
  • Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation [Ref BR302.8 .O93 ]
  • Encyclopedia of Religion in America [Ref. B2520 E52]
  • Encyclopedia of World Methodism, 1974:  vol 1 (A-K) andvol 2 (L-Z)
  • Salem History: Decades 
• Print 
  • New Westminster Dictionary of Church History (Westminster, 2008) [Ref. BR95 .W496]
  • Encyclopedia of Early Christianity (Garland, 1997) [Ref. BR162.2 .E5]
  • Dictionary of the Middle Ages, 1982-1989 [Ref. D114 .O94 ]
  • Encyclopedia of Protestantism, 2004 [Ref BX4811.3 .E53 ]

Bibliography: History Compass

Key periodical databases

• America: History and Life
• Historical Abstracts
• International Medieval Bibliography
• Reader's Guide Retrospective

Newspaper databases (fulltext)

• African American Newspapers: The 19th Century
• America's Historical Newspapers (example: obituary for Jonathan Edwards)
• New York Times Historical

Helpful websites

• Databases by Subjects: scroll down to History 
• History websites

Literature

Literature in the curriculum: Novel Theologies (TPHL310)

Key reference sources

• Literature Criticism online
• Contemporary Authors
• Literature Resource Center
• Chambers Dictionary of Literary Characters

Key database: MLA Bibliography (see under M)

Helpful websites

• Databases by subjects: scroll down to English
• Literature websites

Interdisciplinary databases

• Academic Search Premier (see under A)
• Proquest Research Library
• JSTOR