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Subject guide

Film and Literary Studies

Overview of databases, reference works and websites for research in Film and Literary Studies

Literature
Literary language and style (rhetorics, narratology), methodology, literary genres, schools of literary theory. Also study of literature in relation to art, film, theatre and music; literature in relation to new media, and postcolonial literary theory, studies on cultural identity, migrant literature.
Filmstudies
Film theory, relation between film and literature, history and theory of avant-garde film, art film and documentary film and video.

The paper collection Film and Literary Studies is for the most part located in the University Library. Most of the books are in closed stacks and can be requested through the Catalogue.

Reference collection

The reference collection is located on the first floor of the University Library. The collection comprises:

  • General: Terminological and biographical dictionaries;
  • Literary Theory: methodology and textanalysis, schools in theory (a.o. structuralism, narratology, psychoanalysis, semiotics, feminist literary criticism, deconstruction);
  • Comparative Literature: literary histories sorted by language, period and region, genretheory, literary themes, rhetorics.

Printed journals

Current issues of journals on Film and Literary Studies which are not available digitally, are placed in the round journal cabinets at the entrance to reading room 7. Back volumes are generally located in the S-UB (basement, stairs next to the information desk). Journals in the Closed Stacks can be requested through the Catalogue.

Find our databases on Film and Literary Studies in the catalogue.

To the catalogue

MLA International Bibliography:bibliographical database on literature and linguistics, compiled by the Modern Language Association.

Film literature index: contains citations to film, television and video articles, reviews and book reviews

Communication and Mass Media Complete: access to research in communication and mass media and closely related subjects.

A Critical Bibliography of English, French and Spanish Caribbean Literatures 1954-2004 (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven 2009)

Film Studies

A Dictionary of Film Studies (Annette Kuhn, Oxford UP 2012): covers all aspects of film studies, including terms, concepts, debates, and movements in film theory and criticism, national, international and transnational cinemas, film history, film movements and genres, film industry organizations and practices, and key technical terms and concepts in 500 detailed entries.

Cinema Studies: the Key Concepts (Susan Hayward, Routledge 2018): some 150 key genres, movements, theories and production terms are explained and analyzed

The Routledge Encyclopedia of Films (Sarah Barrow e.a., Routledge 2015): comprises 200 essays by leading film scholars analysing the most important, influential, innovative and interesting films of all time.

Literature Studies

Gale Literary Index: master index to the major literature products published by Gale. It combines and cross-references over 152,000 author names, including pseudonyms and variant names, and listings for over 202,000 titles into one source.

The Literary Encyclopedia (Robert Clark, 2006-e.v.): biographies of major and minor writers; scholarly descriptions of all interesting texts written by these authors, including those often neglected; and a variety of descriptive and critical essays on literary, cultural and historical matters, which provide a finer understanding of the social contexts in which this writing was produced. The encyclopedia covers English, American, German, Russian, Italian, French and Classical literatures, as well as substantial and increasing coverage of Hispanic, Japanese, Canadian, East European and various postcolonial literatures.

Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (Chris Baldick, Oxford UP 2015): definitions of the most troublesome literary terms from abjection to zeugma.

Contemporary literary & cultural theory: the Johns Hopkins guide (Michael Lewis Groden e.a., The Johns Hopkins UP 2012): articles on the most important thinkers and topics in the field. Written by specialists from across disciplines, its entries cover contemporary theory from Adorno to Žižek, providing an informative and reliable introduction to a vast, challenging area of inquiry. Also available online.

Cambridge History of Literary Criticism : overview of the history of literary criticism

Cambridge Companions Online : guides offering the latest research to a large number of subjects, such as "Literature and Religion", "Alice Munro" and "Postcolonial Novels".

Film Studies

Beeld en Geluid op School: television and radio programs from the archives of the Dutch Institute for Sound and Vision (Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid), consisting of both archive materials and a selection of recent programs (news, documentaries etc) of Dutch public broadcasting associations.

BFI Player: archive of moving image films of the British Film Institut 

CineFiles (University of California: Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive): scanned images of reviews, press kits, festival and showcase program notes, newspaper articles, and other documents covering world cinema, past and present.

European Film Gateway: access to hundreds of thousands of film historical documents as preserved in European film archives and cinémathèques: photos, posters, programmes, periodicals, censorship documents, rare feature and documentary films, newsreels and other materials from 38 film archives across Europe.

Literary Studies

Voice of the Shuttle: webportal for literary theory by Alan Liu, Professor in the English Department at the University of California

A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism and Philology: very extensive bibliography of English authors and criticism by Jose Angel Garcia Landa (Universidad de Zaragosa). Many sources are in Spanish.

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