Research Guides: Texts and Criticism: ENG 3096 (James Salazar section): Search for Books

Why Use Books?

Books written by scholars and published by university presses are a good source of information for many topics.

When and Why You Should Use Books:

You need good historical overviews of topic
You need broad coverage of one or more topics
You need a summary of existing research on a topic

Remember: Books may contain less recent information, often due to a lengthy publication process. Also, you may only need to read one chapter of a scholarly book!

Find Books at Temple

Need to find a book? Use the following source to find books at Temple.

Library Search: Books
Use the Library Search to search for books on your topic.

Need additional help? See the FAQs How do I find books? and How do I request, pick-up, and borrow items from the BookBot?

Quick Search Strategy for Finding Relevant Books in Library Search

One quick way to locate literary criticisms in books or book chapters is to combine the author's name with the word "criticism." Oftentimes, these kinds of sources are tagged with the word "criticism" in Library Search. See example below.

Find Books at Other Libraries

Can't find a book you need at Temple? Try using the following sources and request books to be sent to Temple.

EZBorrow
Search nearby libraries for books that are either currently unavailable or not owned by Temple. Available copies may be requested online and are generally ready for pick-up within 3-5 business days.

WorldCat This link opens in a new window
Search millions of items owned by libraries around the world and request via ILLiad (interlibrary loan).

Need additional help with EZBorrow or ILLiad? See the guide Borrow from Another Library.

Select Ebooks

The Cambridge Introduction to Zora Neale Hurston by Lovalerie King
ISBN: 9780521854573
Publication Date: 2008-09-11
Explores Hurston's artistic achievements and her unique character: her staunch individualism, her penchant for drama, her sometimes controversial politics, her philosophical influences and her views on gender relations.
Zora Neale Hurston, Haiti, and Their Eyes Were Watching God by La Vinia Delois Jennings (Editor)
ISBN: 9780810129085
Publication Date: 2013-08-31
The essays included demonstrate that Hurston's study of Haitian Voudoun informed the characterization, plotting, symbolism, and theme of her novel.
Ain't I an Anthropologist: Zora Neale Hurston Beyond the Literary Icon
ISBN: 9780252087103
Iconic as a novelist and popular cultural figure, Zora Neale Hurston remains underappreciated as an anthropologist. Is it inevitable that Hurston's literary authority should eclipse her anthropological authority? If not, what socio-cultural and institutional values and processes shape the different ways we read her work? Jennifer L. Freeman Marshall considers the polar receptions to Hurston's two areas of achievement by examining the critical response to her work across both fields. Drawing on a wide range of readings, Freeman Marshall explores Hurston's popular appeal as iconography, her elevation into the literary canon, her concurrent marginalization in anthropology despite her significant contributions, and her place within constructions of Black feminist literary traditions.
Twentieth-Century Southern Literature by J. A. Bryant
ISBN: 9780813149240
Publication Date: 2014-07-11
Authors discussed include: Wendell Berry, Erskine Caldwell, Truman Capote, Ralph Ellison, William Faulkner, Shelby Foote, Zora Neal Hurston, Bobbie Ann Mason, Cormac McCarthy, Flannery O'Connor, William Styron, Anne Tyler, Alice Walker, Robert Penn Warren, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Thomas Wolfe, Richard Wright, and many more.
The Cambridge Introduction to Herman Melville by Kevin J. Hayes
ISBN: 9780521854801
Publication Date: 2007-03-08
Provides comprehensive information about Melville's life and works in an accessible and engaging book that will be essential for students beginning to read this important author.
The New Cambridge Companion to Herman Melville by Robert S. Levine (Editor)
ISBN: 9781107687912
Publication Date: 2013-12-02
Provides timely, critical essays on Melville's classic works. The essays have been specially commissioned for this volume and provide a complete overview of Melville's career. Melville's major novels are discussed, along with a range of his short fiction and poetry.
A Political Companion to Herman Melville by Jason Frank (Contribution by, Editor)
ISBN: 9780813143873
Publication Date: 2014-01-07
Explores Melville's politics by surveying the full range of his work, giving historical context to Melville's writings and place him in conversation with political and theoretical debates, examining his relationship to transcendentalism and contemporary continental philosophy and addressing his work's relevance to topics such as nineteenth-century imperialism, twentieth-century legal theory, the anti-rent wars of the 1840s, and the civil rights movement.
Protest and the Body in Melville, Dos Passos, and Hurston by Thomas McGlamery
ISBN: 9780203507094
Publication Date: 2013-04-15
This book analyzes the work of Herman Melville, John Dos Passos, and Zora Neale Hurston alongside biographical materials and discourses on the body. Thomas McGlamery views each of these authors' literary output as an effort to "work through" the political meanings associated with the body, examining how they negotiate identities of class, gender, race, sexuality, and age.