German 60 : Performance
Fall 2006
GENERAL SOURCES | ENCYCLOPEDIAS | BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND INDEXES | A FEW WORDS ABOUT JOURNAL ARTICLES | WORLD WIDE WEB RESOURCES
GENERAL SOURCES
The Five-College
Library Catalog is a good place to start library research. You can search for books, journals, and moving pictures in all Five Colleges, or you can limit the search to Amherst's holdings. All books are listed by their AUTHORS, TITLES, and SUBJECTS, and you can also search by KEYWORD.
KEYWORD searching is not likely to yield a comprehensive list of books on any particular topic, but it's often a good way to start (use quotation marks around multi-word phrases to invoke exact-phrase searching); you can type in a common language characterization of your topic, say "cabaret", then, if you browse through the resulting list, select titles related to your research interests, and note which official subject headings are assigned, you can click on those and do a more thorough SUBJECT search.
SUBJECT searching as such (i.e. 'Subject begins with') requires that you use the exact word or phrase libraries have chosen to describe your topic. The official SUBJECT for the topic above, for instance, is "music halls, variety theaters, cabarets, etc.". Be as specific as you can be, and keep in mind that most major subject headings have detailed sub-divisions, so browse through those as well. The five-volume Library of Congress Subject Headings, near the Reference Desk, is a thesaurus of official library terminology. Ask at the Reference Desk if you're not
sure what words or phrases to use.
For quick background information, try Britannica Online from any computer on campus; just click
on the colored link.
ENCYCLOPEDIAS
The Dictionary of Art. New York, Grove's Dictionaries,
1996. 34 volumes.
The basic encyclopedia of artists (short biographies), topics,
terms, etc. Many articles have brief bibliographies appended. (Ref N 31
D5 1996) The
Dictionary of Art (click here to connect) is also available online
from any Amherst computer.
Art in the Modern Era. New York, Abrams, 2002.
Concise summaries of styles, schools and movements, from 1860
to the present; especially helpful for historical background to current
trends. (Ref N 6490 D415 2002)
Artwords: A Glossary of Contemporary Art Theory.
Westport CT, Greenwood, 1997.
A dictionary of theoretical and critical terminology for the
visual arts. (Ref N 71 P32 1997)
A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes. New York, Schirmer,
2000. 2nd edition.
Quirky but informative and enjoyably browsable entries on
experimental artists of the past few decades. (Ref NX 456 K67)
A Dictionary of Cultural and Critical Theory. Oxford,
Blackwell, 1996.
Brief entries on theorists, ideas, etc., with an extensive
bibliography at the back. (Ref HM 101 D527 1996)
Encyclopedia of Postmodernism. London & New York,
Routledge, 2001.
Similar to the preceding title, with good cross-referencing
and tiny reading lists following some entries. (Ref B 831.2 E63 2001)
Encyclopedia of 20th-Century Architecture. London
& New York, Fitzroy Dearborn, 2004. 4 volumes.
A-Z entries, illustrated, on architects, building types, notable
buildings, countries, cities, movements, materials, theory, etc., most
with small bibliographies. (Ref NA 680 E495 2004)
World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre. London
& New York, Routledge, 1994. 6 volumes.
Each of the first five volumes covers an area of the world
("Europe", "Americas", "Africa", etc.),
and within each there's a country-by-country survey of local 20th century
theater history, sociology of theater, directing, acting, dramaturgical,
and design styles, etc. The sixth volume includes an index to the previous
five, plus a 250-page bibliography. (Ref PN 1861 W67 1994)
International Encyclopedia of Dance. New York, Oxford,
1998. 6 volumes.
Huge collection of short articles on performers, techniques,
regional styles, etc. (Ref GV 1585 I586 1998)
Encyclopedia of Contemporary German Culture. London
& New York, Routledge, 1999.
Brief articles on selected issues and individuals in German
cultural studies. (Ref DD 290.26 E53 1999)
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND INDEXES
Printed subject bibliographies and indexes,
which list books and/or articles on particular topics, can lead you to
substantial reading lists in your area of research. Action Art: A Bibliography
of Artists' Performance from Futurism to Fluxus and Beyond (Ref Z
5936 nP47 G73 1993) is one key example. It lists books and articles on
general topics, movements, and individual artists. But it's a bit dated;
online indexes enable you to update.
Depending on your research topic, there may be
other useful printed bibliographies (thousands exist); use the SUBJECT
category in the Library Catalog to track them down, guess at KEYWORD(s),
or ask for assistance at the Reference Desk.
The most relevant indexes for this course, available by clicking
on the links which follow, are probably Art
Abstracts, The Bibliography of the History of Art (RILA/BHA), Avery
Architectural Index, and MLA (literary criticism). You can also try Academic Search Premier and Expanded Academic Index, both of which are more general in
their coverage and therefore significantly more selective than discipline-specific
listings, but have the advantage of including many electronic, full-text
articles.
A FEW WORDS ABOUT JOURNAL ARTICLES
Printed and computerized indexes and bibliographies provide citations to articles which may or may not be owned by the Amherst College Library. To find out if and where we have older issues of journals, you can look up each journal title (not article titles or authors) in the Library Catalog (use the 'Journal title keyword' search); be attentive to volume numbers and dates which show up onscreen since sometimes we've started or stopped a subscription in the middle of a run. Or you can use the 'Journal Locator' (clickable from the righthand box in the Library homepage) to find electronic- as well as print-format versions of journals.
WORLD WIDE WEB RESOURCES
A Google search using "performance art" yields nearly six million results.
It's more efficient to use what are called metasites - sites which compile relevant links - provided the selection is worthwhile. Click on 'Subject and Course Guides' in the Library homepage, or click here, for example, on Art, German,
and/or Theater
& Dance.
With respect to limiting Google output, look for a so-called directory service in your results, like Yahoo, which has done some preselection. Always remember that the World Wide Web, unlike the Library, is largely un-refereed, that is, the information mounted may or may not be legitimate. Be skeptical, and read critically.
Comments regarding this page should be directed to: Michael Kasper