LibGuides: Modern Languages: H1310: Japanese Pop Culture

Welcome!

This page is for students in H1310: Japanese Pop Culture. Browse the resources below for suggestions on books, databases, and other digital collections. These resources are offered as a starting point for your assignments in this course, although you are encouraged to explore other library materials.

Questions?

Contact the library!

For in-depth assistance with your chosen topic, you are encouraged to email or book a research consultation with the arts & humanities librarian or honors college librarian. You are free to do so at any point in the semester, but please allow 1-2 days' notice.

Quick Tips for New Students
A review handout covering the basics of searching the library website & online databases.

Summon

Summon will search across UMSL's print materials and most of our online databases. It is a great tool to start your research, though we recommend also following up with databases relevant to your research topic.

Please feel free to contact the library with questions about using Summon! You can also access the search bar from the library home page.

Databases & Websites

The following list offers suggestions for databases or websites to get started with your research. Depending on your topic, you may find it helpful to explore additional databases offered by the the library. For other options, explore the full list of UMSL's databases.

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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JSTOR contains articles and books, usually at least 3-5 years old, from scholarly sources. Some journals & books are available from as far back as the 1800s. For more recent material, try using Summon or one of the individual databases. ** In response to the COVID pandemic JSTOR has extended free access to an extended list of journals until June 30, 2022. **
UMSL has access to the following JSTOR Collections:
- Arts & Sciences I (economics, history, political science, sociology, ecology, mathematics, and statistics)
- Arts & Sciences II (additional journals for many of the disciplines in Arts & Sciences I, plus journals in several additional disciplines: archaeology, classics, and African, Latin American, Middle Eastern, and Slavic studies)
- Arts & Sciences III i(languages and literature, music, film studies, folklore, performing arts, religion, feminist & women's studies, and the history & study of art and architecture)
- Arts & Sciences IV (business, education, and law, psychology, public policy and administration)
- Health & General Sciences (historical scientific journals, health sciences)
- Books at JSTOR (50,000+ titles)
- Early Journal Content (journals published in the United States before 1923 and published in other countries before 1870)
Researchers and students may also be interested in JSTOR's Data for Research beta site, a free, self-service tool that allows computer scientists, digital humanists, and other researchers to select and interact with JSTOR content. The Data for Research site contains a set of web-based tools, including:
- a powerful faceted search interface that can be leveraged to define content of interest through an iterative process of searching and results filtering
- word frequencies, citations, key terms, and ngrams utilized for conducting analysis of document-level data
- topic modeling (classification of subject headings at the article level), a powerful tool for content selection and filtering
- downloadable datasets containing word frequencies, citations, key terms, or ngrams associated with the content selected
- visualization tools
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Complete is a scholarly, multidisciplinary full-text database, with several thousand full-text periodicals, most of which are peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for many more journals, monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc.

The database features PDF content going back as far as 1887, with the majority of full-text titles in native (searchable) PDF format.

This resource is partially funded by MOREnet, the Missouri Research and Education Network.
SSRN This link opens in a new window
SSRN is an open-access online preprint community providing valuable services to leading academic schools and government institutions. Specializing primarily in social sciences, including economics, law, corporate governance, and humanities, SSRN is branching out into other science disciplines. Most, but not all papers are free.
National Diet Library Digital Collections (Japan) This link opens in a new window
The NDL Digital Collections enables a user to search and view a variety of resources, collected and stored by the National Diet Library of Japan.
* Ensure "Available Online" is checked. Some elements have been translated into English; most are in Japanese. *
Communication and Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new window
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Communication & Mass Media Complete provides quality research in areas related to communication and mass media.

This database originated with the acquisition and subsequent merging of two popular databases in the fields of communication and mass media studies -- CommSearch (formerly produced by the National Communication Association (NCA)), and Mass Media Articles Index (formerly produced by Pennsylvania State University).

Books at UMSL

A small selection of books discussing Japanese pop culture are offered below as a starting point. For a reminder about how to search for additional books related to your topic, please visit the Books tab on the left side of this guide.

Click on the titles for book summaries and location information.

Reminders

You do not have to read an entire book in order to use it in your academic assignments! It is very common to browse the Table of Contents to search for a chapter or two that is relevant to your interests.

Tip: You can request a digital scan of 1-2 chapters of a print book through interlibrary loan. Log in > Create request > Select "Book Chapter" from the options across the top of the form.