Research Guides: THTR 3470: Dramaturgy: Historical Contexts

Historical Contexts - Recommended Databases

Search databases with a historical focus to learn more about the times during your playwright's life or the historical context in which your play is set:

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR is an interdisciplinary archive of over one thousand leading academic journals from the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work.
JSTOR is an interdisciplinary archive of over one thousand leading academic journals from the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work. It is full-text searchable and includes images. There are embargos of between 3-5 years for most journal titles. Journals are always included from volume 1, issue 1.
America: History and Life This link opens in a new window
Articles on the history and culture of the United States & Canada. Coverage from prehistory to the present.
America: History and Life is a comprehensive bibliography of articles on the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. AHL offers abstracts and citations for articles appearing in over 2,000 journals published worldwide in history, related humanities, and the social sciences. Coverage also includes citations to book reviews from approximately 100 major journals of American history and culture and relevant dissertations from Dissertation Abstracts International.

Subject keywords: History. Interdisciplinary Studies. Popular Culture. Multicultural Studies. American Studies. Women's Studies/Gender Studies. Anthropology. Literature/Folklore. Sociology. Genealogy. History of Science, Economics, Business, Education, Music, Art, and Law.
Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Contains articles covering world history from 1450 to present (excluding U.S. and Canada).
Historical Abstracts is a reference guide to the history of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding North America, which is covered in America: History and Life). Historical Abstracts indexes key historical journals from virtually every major country, plus a targeted selection of hundreds of journals in the social sciences and humanities that are of special interest to researchers and students of history.

Historical Abstracts also cites new books reviewed in key English-language history and review journals. Dissertation citations relevant to the subject scope are derived from Dissertation Abstracts International.

Subject keywords: History. Multicultural Studies. Sociology. Psychology. Women's Studies/Gender Studies. Religion. Anthropology. Political Science. History of Science, Economics, Business, Education, Music, Art, and Law.

Google Scholar
Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.

For example, if you were researching Arthur Miller's The Crucible, you could research the context around the Salem Witch Trials or you could also research McCarthyism during the 1940s and 1950s.

Quick Tip: Where are Theater Books?

Theater books are located in the library in a few different places:

790s call numbers - theater and performing arts
812s call numbers - American drama
822s call numbers - English drama
882s call numbers - Greek and classical drama

Historical Contexts - Recommended Books

You can also check out books at the library on general theater history, like these:

Theatre History Explained by Neil Fraser
Publication Date: 2004
Western Drama Through the Ages by Kimball King
Publication Date: 2007
The Theatre: A Concise History by Phyllis Hartnoll; Enoch Brater
Publication Date: 1998