All Guides: English Literature: Getting Started

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Best Bets

Literary Sources (Gale) This link opens in a new window A collection of several literary databases, searchable in one interface.
MLA International Bibliography (Ebsco) This link opens in a new window The primary database for literary and film scholarship.
Primary Sources (Gale) This link opens in a new window Search across our Gale primary source databases; find historical newspapers and primary documents, mainly from the United States and Great Britain.
Includes the Times (London) and Economist historical archives, and a wide range of early modern/colonial British and American primary sources.
Black Drama This link opens in a new window Contains plays written by black playwrights and/or highlighting black experiences, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more.
HathiTrust Digital Library This link opens in a new window A digital preservation repository that provides access to millions of digitized materials from libraries around the world. For enhanced access to materials, log into HathiTrust using your Macalester email credentials.
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Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window Interdisciplinary resource with popular, scholarly, and peer-reviewed articles and citations. Includes speeches, newspapers, and polls.
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Poetry Foundation The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is an independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. It exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience. Contains overviews and poems from a wide range of notable poets.

Birchbark Books

From the New York Times:

Where to Find Native American Culture and a Good Read

The New York Times visited Birchbark Books & Native Arts in Minneapolis, owned by the National Book Award-winning novelist Louise Erdrich. Birchbark Books specializes in books and crafts by Native artists. Located near Kenwood Park in Minneapolis, the store is an important part of local literary culture!

Featured Journals

PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America PMLA is the journal of the Modern Language Association of America. Since 1884, PMLA has published members’ essays judged to be of interest to scholars and teachers of language and literature.
Poetry The Poetry Foundation's monthly journal.
The Kenyon Review Founded in 1939, the Kenyon Review is published by Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. They primarily publish poems and short stories.

Finding Library Resources Near You

Taking classes remotely this year? Here is a tutorial on how to find resources at a library near you!

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Saint Paul Public Library

St. Paul Public Library has more than 42,000 ebooks and 300 audiobooks that you can check out online, including an extensive fiction collection.

As a Macalester College student, you can use the college's address to sign up for an E-card to allow you to use online resources from the St. Paul Public Library at https://sppl.org/ecard. Once you've registered, you can borrow and download ebooks and audiobooks to view on an e-reader, computer, or mobile device.

Local Resources and Organizations

A handful of links to local resources and organizations in the Twin Cities to kick-start your research process.

Button Poetry Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for performance poetry. They seek to showcase the power and diversity of voices in our community.
Cow Tipping Press Cow Tipping Press applies lean startup principles to create just that—an opportunity to relish assets rather than pity deficits of our peers with disabilities through the unique lens of creative writing.
Coffee House Press Coffee House Press creates new spaces for audiences and artists to interact, inspiring readers and enriching communities by expanding the definition of what literature is, what it can do, and who it belongs to.
Milkweed Editions Milkweed Editions is a nonprofit publisher of literature for adults and young adults based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They believe that literature has the potential to change the way we see the world, and that bringing new voices to essential conversations is the clearest path to ensuring a vibrant, diverse, and empowered future.
Graywolf Press Graywolf Press is a Minneapolis nonprofit literary publisher of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and work in translation. They have published books such as Claudia Rankine's Citizen and Danez Smith's Don't Call Us Dead that are read, taught, and appreciated by the Macalester community.
Loft Literary Center The Loft Literary Center holds classes and literary events to support up-and-coming community writers. Their mission is to advance the artistic development of writers, foster a thriving literary community, and inspire a passion for literature.

English Literature

Library Resources

Quick Links

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Best Bets

New Books in English Literature

Black Love, Black Hate: Intimate Antagonisms in African American Literature

Neighborhood Odes

Pan-African American Literature: Signifyin(g) Immigrants in the Twenty-First Century

Law and Literature

Phonographic Memories: Popular Music and the Contemporary Caribbean Novel

Poetry and Animals: Blurring the Boundaries with the Human

The Digital Literary Sphere: Reading, Writing, and Selling Books in the Internet Era

The American Short Story Cycle

Gardenland: Nature, Fantasy, and Everyday Practice

A Translational Turn: Latinx Literature into the Mainstream

Love in the New Millennium

In the Night of Memory: A Novel

Arid Dreams: Stories

The Restless