Exploring the WGS Literature
Women's & Gender Studies (WGS) is a far-reaching, ambitiously comprehensive area of study. While there is no doubt that studying Women/Gender will lead to a revised consideration of the literal, visceral gender imbalances of the world, WGS also seeks to investigate the nature of reality itself - as previously shaped by male philosophers and thinkers. The area of feminist metaphysics, for example, intervenes in these traditional assertions, as well as feminist philosophy more broadly.
The relevance here is that your study of Women/Gender may take you on journeys within and beyond the borders of the field. Feminist perspectives arise in every discipline, whether or not they are designated as such: and your search for articles must similarly be broad. Adding your topic and the phrase "feminist theory" is one simple way to start (in quotations, so that you search the full phrase and not just the words "feminist" and "theory" as unrelated keywords).
Your friendly WGS librarian encourages you to be in touch if you have any trouble navigating our many databases; finding appropriate sources; or determining the relevance of the sources you do find.
Publishing
- Journal Citation Reports
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Presents an array of citation-based metrics for journals indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection. Provides Journal Impact Factor (i.e., average number of citations in a given year to articles published by that journal in the previous two years, averaged over the number of articles published in those two years) for many but not all covered journals. Search or browse the database by journal (title or ISSN), subject category, or publisher. Compare metrics for up to four journals simultaneously.
Biography
- Biography Reference Bank
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Contains biographical information on more than 500,000 individuals from antiquity to the present. Provides in-depth profiles from Current Biography and World Authors, the periodical coverage of Biography Index and specialist content of Junior Authors & Illustrators. Includes 700,000 full-text articles from magazines, journals, and reference sources, 36,000 images, and abstracts from magazines and journals. Searchable by occupation, activity, gender, place of origin, birthday, and lifespan.
Gender & Sexuality Studies E-journals
- Gender & Sexuality StudiesGraduate Center e-journals in Gender & Sexuality Studies
Multi-database search
- Ebsco Multi-Database Search (by categories, fewer titles)This resource allows the simultaneous searching of many of the full-text and bibliographic databases to which all of CUNY subscribes, arranged by category, as well as the CUNY Catalog.
Databases
- Contemporary Women's Issues
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A multidisciplinary, full-text database that brings together content from mainstream periodicals, gray literature, and the alternative press, with a focus on the critical issues and events that influence women's lives in more than 190 countries. Contemporary Women's Issues includes English-language titles from East and West Africa, Asia, and South and Central America, the Caribbean, North America and Europe. It also includes hard-to-find newsletters and NGO research reports, plus ephemeral literature from leading research institutes and grass roots organizations that is rarely indexed or cataloged.
- Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic CulturesThe EWIC is an interdisciplinary, transhistorical, and global project. It brings together upwards of 1,000 scholars to write critical essays on women, Muslim and non-Muslim, and Islamic cultures in every region where there have been significant Muslim populations. It aims to cover every topic for which there is significant research, examining these regions from the period just before the rise of Islam to the present.
- Manuscript Women's Letters and Diaries
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Over 102,000 pages of personal writings by American women of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries drawn from the holdings of the American Antiquarian Society. The manuscripts date from 1750 to 1950 and include letters and diary entries of ordinary women that document their daily lives, and those of more well-known women such as Annie Sullivan, the teacher of Helen Keller; Ellen Tucker Emerson, daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who describes life in Concord during the Civil War; and Abby Kelley Foster, an abolitionist and advocate for women’s rights. - PAIS Index - International and Archive
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Bibliographic citations from international sources including journals, books, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference papers, web content, and more, covering public policy, social policy, and the social sciences in general from 1915 to the present. - Women and Social Movements, International - 1840 to Present
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This digital archive includes 150,000 pages of conference proceedings, reports of international women's organizations, publications and web pages of women's non-governmental organizations, and letters, diaries, and memoirs of women active internationally since the mid-nineteenth century. It also includes photographs and videos of major events and activists in the history of women’s international social movements as well as scholarly essays exploring themes illuminated by materials in the archive. - Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
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The collection currently includes 124 document projects and archives with more than 5,100 documents and 175,000 pages of additional full-text items. It also includes book, film, and website reviews, notes from the archives, teaching tools, and reference works.
- Gender Studies CollectionGale's collection of materials on gender and gender studies.
Google Scholar
General Databases
- Arts and Humanities Citation IndexPart of Web of Science, this database finds bibliographic citations, abstracts, cited references, and the number of times cited for articles from 1,160 international journals in the arts and humanities since 1975 as well as relevant items from over 6,800 major science and social science journals. Approximately 2,300 new records containing 15,525 new references are added each week.
- Academic Search Complete
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A multi-disciplinary database with more than 8,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, the database includes indexing and abstracts for more than 12,500 journals and more than 13,200 publications, such as monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc. While full text is available as far back as 1887 for a few titles, the text of most titles is available only for the past decade or two. - America: History & Life
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Abstracts of articles covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. The database indexes 1,700 journals from 1964 to present and includes citations and links to book and media reviews. - American History in Video
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Over 70,000 titles of streaming video content, more than half of which is contemporary video from the 1890s to the 1980s. Includes documentaries, interviews, feature films, performances, demonstrations, news programs and newsreels that span a wide range of subjects, including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more. - Gale Literature
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Gale Literature searches multiple databases at once, combining Gale Literature Resource Center (biographies, overviews, criticism, audio interviews, and reviews), Gale LitFinder (full text poems, plays, short stories, and speeches from all eras), and Gale eBooks (reference sources). It also includes the Gale Literary Index covering 165,000 authors and 215,000 works, and workflow tools to analyze information. - Art Index Retrospective
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A periodical literature database that cumulates citations from the printed version of the Art Index, volumes 1-32 (1929-1984). The database cites articles from periodicals, yearbooks, and museum bulletins published throughout the world in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Dutch. It also indexes reproductions of art works that appear in the indexed periodicals. Art Full Text continues Art Index and begins coverage in 1984. - Historical Abstracts
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Historical Abstracts covers the history of the world (excluding the U.S. and Canada) from 1450 to the present, including world history, military history, women's history, the history of education, and more. Indexes more than 2,300 academic historical journals in over 40 languages from 1955 to the present. Includes links to full text, where available. - Humanities Source
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Over 1,500 full-text journals dating back to 1907. Includes millions of records covering archaeology, art, communications, dance, film, folklore, history, journalism, linguistics, literary and social criticism, classical studies, area studies and gender studies. Should be included in any humanities search. - JSTOR
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A digital library containing journals, books, images, and primary sources. The GC’s subscription includes JSTOR’s Arts and Sciences I-XII collections of scholarly journals across the social sciences and humanities. Coverage begins with the first issue of almost every journal and continues through varying periods within the last five years. Also included are more than 700 freely accessible collections of illustrations, letters, literary documents, newspapers, magazines, photographs, postcards, and yearbooks; open access alternative press publications from the latter half of the 20th century; and thousands of research reports. 3+ million images in Artstor are also now discoverable in JSTOR. Browse content by subject, title, or collection, or search across the full resource. Register for a free personal account to save materials and organize your work. - Project Muse
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The CUNY and Graduate Center subscriptions provide access to the full text of nearly 400 journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences along with over 70,000 e-books and 4,600 open access books. Select “Browse All Muse” and filter by Access type “Only content I have access to” to see subscribed and OA content. Or look for the green check mark and OA icons that appear next to accessible titles when searching across the platform. E-books are also available via the separate link to Project Muse E-Books.