Anthropology 316: Religion & Encounter in African Diaspora

Reference books of interest:

Reference books provide background, overview, context, quick facts, keywords to pursue, suggested readings, and sometimes even possible authors to follow. They can be a handy way to get a jump-start or to get back on track.

Africana: The Encyclopedia of African and African-American Experience
DT 14 A37435 2005 Reference
A five volume encyclopedia on all aspects of African cultures - many useful entries.  Only in print in the Reference Room.

Encyclopedia of African History
DT 20 E53 2005 Reference
Three volumes with entries of interest for broad historical context - for example:  "Religion..."

Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa
also in print DS 43  E53 2004
Focused more on the Middle East in terms of religion, but some good articles on north African countries.

Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara
DT 351 E53 1997
A bit older but a excellent resource.  See especially the set of entries on "Prophetic Movements..."

Encyclopedia of Religion
BL 31 E46 2005 Reference
A huge, canonical encyclopedia set.  Useful for overviews of religious practices, major figures, etc.

Encyclopedia of African American Society
also in print:  E 185 E546 2005 Reference

Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History
also in print: E 185 E54 2006 Reference

Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America

Finding Books:

Start with our Five College Library Catalog
Keyword searching is a good start.   Break your topic down into its key concepts and remember to use synonyms and alternate spellings, etc.  Once you've found something interesting, build on that.   Check the subject headings for more stuff -- but don't go too "narrow".   Skim the subject categories themselves to see what might apply.

For example, some useful  Subject Headings might be: 

African Diaspora  African Americans -- Religion  Blacks -- Latin America -- Religion Sects -- Africa, Sub-Saharan

Garifuna (Caribbean People) Candomble (Religion) Masowe, Johane Black Muslims

Beyond the collections of the five colleges, you can look nationally, & somewhat internationally, and have things sent via interlibrary loan (ILLiad).
WorldCat
is a major databases of thousands of library collections combined. 

Research databases for articles:

AnthroSource
The core anthropology journals, most in full text.

Anthropological Index Online (AIO)
An index to articles in the journals held by the British Museum - Museum of Mankind.   Not full text, but some articles may be accessible online or could be retrieved through interlibrary loan (ILLiad).

Annual Review of Anthropology
Major "review articles" discussing the current anthropological research and literature on a topic.   Generally these articles are on larger themes.

ATLA Religion Database
Religion and theology journals and conference papers, as well as some books or book chapter citations.   Not a full text database, but many articles will link to full text elsewhere.

Academic Search Premier (from EBSCO)
A large, interdisciplinary database with a lot of full text.   It may be especially useful for finding book reviews to help you assess your potential sources (e.g., from the journal "Reviews in Anthropology") or just generally to find articles on more interdisciplinary topics.

allAfrica.com
Primarily news and popular information.  This is a commercial website, with ads, but can be interesting as a glimpse into "what's going on".

Ethnic NewsWatch
A mix of scholary and more popular articles, most in full text.  A good resource for less mainstream publications.

Historical Abstracts, or -
America: History & Life
Scholarly articles from history journals.  
America: History & Life is North American history.  Historical Abstracts is everything else.  This database is unique in letting you search by a time period of interest in addition to a topic.

Special Websites:

In Motion:  The African-American Migration Experience
In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience presents a new interpretation of African-American history, one that focuses on the self-motivated activities of peoples of African descent to remake themselves and their worlds.  It includes more than 16,500 pages of texts, 8,300 illustrations, and more than 60 maps.  Produced by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library.

African Voices
African Voices is a permanent exhibition that examines the diversity, dynamism, and global influence of Africa’s peoples and cultures over time in the realms of family, work, community, and the natural environment.   Produced by the Smithsonian Institution, Museum of Natural History.

AARDOC
African-American Religion: A Documentary History Project was founded in 1987 and is headquartered at Amherst College. Its goal is to produce a comprehensive history of African-American religion, from the earliest African-European encounters along the west coast of Africa in the mid-fifteenth century to the present day.