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Literature

A guide to literature research resources from UMSL Libraries.

Text: Literature Research Guide. Bookshelf in the background.

Welcome!

This guide offers an introduction to literature resources and research at UMSL Libraries. You will find help with:

  • Using our main search tool, Discover@UMSL, to find articles, books, and more
  • Locating reference texts for background information
  • Navigating literature and literary criticism databases
  • Citing sources

Use the navigation tabs on the left to explore. For more advanced research help, please contact the library!


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What's New?

How to Reread a Novel

Drawing on classical philology, the rhetorical tradition, and recent approaches to narratology, Clark explores reading fiction as a complex experience of perception, cognition, and emotion, in which the writer of a narrative attempts to create and control the experience of the reader through the deployment of narrative techniques.

Technology and Literature

Shows how literature has been shaped by technological revolutions, and reveals the essential work that literature has done in helping to uncover the consequences of new technologies.

Decolonizing Literature

Anna Bernard argues that the decolonization of literary studies requires a change to not only what, but how, we read. In lively prose, she explores work that has already been done, both within and beyond the academy, and challenges readers to think about where we go from here.

Ethics and Eventfulness in Middle English Literature

Examines how Middle English writers including Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, and Malory treat unpredictable events such as sexual attraction, political disaster, social competition, traumatic accidents, and the textual condition itself - locating in fortune the very potentiality of ethical life.

Introduction to Claudia Rankine

Written for scholars, poets, students, and general readers, Schultz's book outlines Rankine's poetic career in all its major facets, including an analysis of Rankine's seminal book, Citizen.