LibGuides: AML 2600: African American Literature: Home

Library Resources

English Library Resources
by Christina Dillon -MDC Last Updated Jan 26, 2024 230 views this year

Searching the Catalog:

Find Books & Other Print Materials

Click the button below to search for Books and Other Print Materials within the MDC Library Collection.

Selected Print Books:

African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song (LOA #333) by Kevin Young (Editor)
ISBN: 9781598536669
Publication Date: 2020-10-20
Black Ink by Stephanie Stokes Oliver (Editor); Nikki Giovanni (Foreword by)
ISBN: 9781501154287
Publication Date: 2018-01-30
Race Sounds by Nicole Brittingham Furlonge
ISBN: 9781609385613
Publication Date: 2018-05-15
The Source of Self-Regard by Toni Morrison
ISBN: 9780525562795
Publication Date: 2020-01-14
Zora and Langston by Yuval Taylor
ISBN: 9780393243918
Publication Date: 2019-03-26
Well-Read Black Girl by Glory Edim
ISBN: 9780525619772
Publication Date: 2018-10-30
New Daughters of Africa by Margaret Busby
ISBN: 9780062912985
Publication Date: 2019-05-07
African American Novels in the Black Lives Matter Era by E. Lâle Demirtürk
ISBN: 9781498596213
Publication Date: 2019-08-09
Pan-African American Literature by Stephanie Li
ISBN: 9780813592770
Publication Date: 2018-09-14
The African American Sonnet by Timo Müller
ISBN: 9781496817839
Publication Date: 2018-08-02

English & Speech Library Liaison:

Christina Dillon -MDC

Email Me

Contact:

Learning Resources, Room 1407
Miami Dade College, Hialeah Campus

305.237.8655 | cmachado@mdc.edu

Subjects: Literature, Speech

Digital Resources

eBook & Audiobooks:

OverDrive Digital Media Library This link opens in a new window (Overdrive) - OverDrive provides access to popular and bestselling eBooks and eAudiobooks. OverDrive’s “Libby” app syncs your loans across all your devices Funded by: College
eBook Collection (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window (EBSCO) - EBSCO is now a key provider of eBooks to libraries and other institutions worldwide. The synergy of eBooks with EBSCOs multifaceted collection of electronic content provides libraries with even more options for fulfilling their growing electronic information needs. Making eBook content accessible via the popular EBSCOhost interface will provide for a more powerful, fully-integrated user experience and prove valuable to librarians, students, and researchers. EBSCO offers a rapidly growing collection of eBooks available via convenient Subject Sets that have been hand-crafted by collection development experts. Funded by: College and Statewide
Infobase eBooks (Infobase Publishing) This link opens in a new window (Infobase Publishing) - Geared to the school and library market, our highly acclaimed reference and nonfiction books cover a wide variety of core subject areas, such as history, science, literature, careers, geography, health, and more. Our various imprints span a range of grade levels from elementary school through college with special imprints devoted to career references and an extensive library of literary criticism edited by the esteemed Harold Bloom. Funded by: College

Streaming Video:

Kanopy This link opens in a new window Watch thousands of streaming films, documentaries and training videos. Kanopy’s award-winning collection includes PBS, Criterion Collection, New Day, California Newsreel, First Run Features, and hundreds of other leading producers -- on every topic imaginable. Funded by: College
Films on Demand (Infobase Publishing) This link opens in a new window Streaming video from large and small production companies covering a wide range of subjects to enhance college courses. These videos include public performance rights that allow them to be used in the educational setting.Funded by: College (FLVC Group License)
Swank Motion Pictures This link opens in a new window Swank Motion Pictures, Inc.®, founded in 1937, is the major non-theatrical movie distributor, online CE/CME education distributor, and public performance licensing agent in venues where feature movies are shown publicly. Funded by: College

Selected Databases:

Academic Search Complete (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Complete, designed specifically for academic institutions, is the world's most valuable and comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 5,300 full-text periodicals, including 4,400 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 9,300 journals and a total of 10,900 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc. The database features PDF content going back as far as 1865, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format.

Funded by: Statewide Allocation
Book Review Digest Plus (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
(H.W. Wilson) - A library classic for nearly 100 years, Book Review Digest indexes and provides excerpts of reviews of current English-language fiction and non-fiction. Now, Book Review Digest has become Book Review Digest Plus, dramatically expanding its scope (from its former base of 109 periodicals) with entries drawn from thousands of periodicals covered by other WilsonWeb databases.

Funded by: College (FLVC Group License)
Books & Authors (Gale) This link opens in a new window
(Gale) - Books & Authors provides new ways to explore the endless possibilities and combinations of books, authors, and topics. Adapted from Gale's acclaimed What Do I Read Next? print series, Books & Authors is specially designed to complement the browsing habits of today's Web user, integrating easy-to-follow menus that allow users to broaden and narrow their searches according to author, title or series, awards, and other criteria. An "if you like" search connects readers to the themes and genres that may have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Funded by: State Library of Florida
Humanities Full Text (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
(H.W. Wilson) - Over 500 English-language periodicals covering literature and language, history, philosophy, archaeology, classical studies, folklore, gender studies, performing arts, history, religion, and theology. Many articles in full text.

Funded by: College (FLVC Group License)
Humanities Source (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Designed to meet the needs of students, researchers and educators interested in all aspects of the humanities. The collection includes full text for more than 1,400 journals, with citations to over 3.5 million articles, including book reviews. Coverage in Humanities Source includes worldwide content pertaining to literary, scholarly, and creative thought.

Funded by: Statewide Allocation
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
(JSTOR) - Access back issues of core journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Over 700 titles available.

Funded by: Statewide Allocation
Literary Reference Center Plus (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
(EBSCO) - Literary Reference Center is a full text database that combines information from major respected reference works, books, and literary journals, as well as original content from EBSCO Publishing. This resource includes plot summaries, synopses and work overviews; articles of literary criticism; author biographies; full text of literary journals; book reviews; classic & contemporary poems; classic & contemporary short stories; full text of classic novels; author interviews; and images of key literary figures.

Funded by: Statewide Allocation
Literature Resources from Gale This link opens in a new window
Gale Literary Sources brings together all of Gale's literary databases into one seamlessly cross-searchable research and study environment. Whether you're researching authors and their works, literary movements or genres, or trying to find book reviews of bestsellers, you can search across all of your library's Gale literary databases to find full text of literary works, journal articles, literature criticism and analysis, reviews, author biographies, and a rich collection of expertly written work overviews.

Funded by: Statewide Allocation
LitFinder (Gale) This link opens in a new window
(Gale) - Includes access to three databases: Poem Finder, Story Finder, and Essay/Speech/Play Finder. Poem Finder is the largest, most comprehensive and most current poetry database available. It is international in scope, and covers poetry from antiquity to the present. It is a one-stop resource for locating over 4.5 million lines of poetry. Story Finder provides thousands of full-text short stories plus explanations, biographies, pictures and more. The database will be updated constantly with classic and contemporary stories. Speeches represent the finest examples of recorded oratory, covering the milestones of history as well as the minutiae of everyday life. Over 1,000 complete plays cover the range of dramatic expression from many countries, including one-act plays, puppet plays, Harlinquinades, tragedies, gothic, religious, romantic, historical, children's, and comedic plays.

Funded by: State Library of Florida

Open Educational Resources

Open Educational Resources (OER) | English Discipline
by Christina Dillon -MDC Last Updated Mar 7, 2023 143 views this year

Selected Open Resources:

Freedom's Story: Teaching African American Literature and History
Overview: The National Humanities center presents this collection of essays by leading scholars on the topic Freedom's Story: Teaching African American Literature and History. Topics include the affect of slavery on families, slave resistance, how to read slave narratives, Frederick Douglass, reconstruction, segregation, pigmentocracy, protest poetry, jazz, the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement, and more.
African American Protest Poetry, Freedom's Story, TeacherServe®, National Humanities Center Overview: Given the secondary position of persons of African descent throughout their history in America, it could reasonably be argued that all efforts of creative writers from that group are forms of protest. However, for purposes of this discussion, Defining African American protest poetrysome parameters might be drawn. First—a definition. Protest, as used herein, refers to the practice within African American literature of bringing redress to the secondary status of black people, of attempting to achieve the acceptance of black people into the larger American body politic, of encouraging practitioners of democracy truly to live up to what democratic ideals on American soil mean. Protest literature consists of a variety of approaches, from the earliest literary efforts to contemporary times. These include articulating the plight of enslaved persons, challenging the larger white community to change its attitude toward those persons, and providing specific reference points for the nature of the complaints presented. In other words, the intention of protest literature was—and remains—to show inequalities among races and socio-economic groups in America and to encourage a transformation in the society that engenders such inequalities. For African Americans, Some of the questions motivating African American protest poetrythat inequality began with slavery. How, in a country that professed belief in an ideal democracy, could one group of persons enslave another? What forms of moral persuasion could be used to get them to see the error of their ways? In addition, how, in a country that professed belief in Christianity, could one group enslave persons whom Christian doctrine taught were their brothers and sisters? And the list of “hows” goes on. How could white Americans justify Jim Crow? Inequalities in education, housing, jobs, accommodation, transportation, and a host of other things? In response to these “hows,” another “how” emerged. How could writers use their imaginations and pens to bring about change in the society? Protest literature, therefore, focused on such issues and worked to rectify them. Poetry is but one of the media through which writers address such issues, as there are forms of protest fiction, drama, essays, and anything else that African Americans wrote—and write.
Frederick Douglass's "Narrative:" Myth of the Happy Slave
Overview: In 1845, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, and Written by Himself was published. In it, Douglass criticizes directly often with withering irony those who defend slavery and those who prefer a romanticized version of it.
Comparing Portrayals of Slavery in Nineteenth-Century Photography and Literature
Overview: In this lesson, students analyze similarities and differences among depictions of slavery in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", Frederick Douglass' "Narrative", and nineteenth century photographs of slaves. Students formulate their analysis of the role of art and fiction, as they attempt to reliably reflect social ills, in a final essay.
Examining the Legacy of the American Civil Rights Era
Overview: As part of their study of Richard Wright's "Black Boy", students research and reflect on the current black-white racial divide in America. By examining the work of literature in the context of contemporary events, students will deepen their understanding of the work and of what it means to be an American today.
African American History and Culture in the United States
Overview: Our Teacher's Guide offers a collection of lessons and resources for K-12 social studies, literature, and arts classrooms that center around the achievements, perspectives, and experiences of African Americans across U.S. history. Below you will find materials for teaching and learning about the perspectives of slaves and free African Americans during the American Revolution, the work of the Freedman’s Bureau during and after Reconstruction, the artistry of Jacob Lawrence, the reality faced by African American soldiers returning home after fighting in WWI, the songs and efforts of the Freedom Riders during the long civil rights movements, and the works of Lorraine Hansberry, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Maya Angelou.
Black Matters: Introduction to Black Studies
Description: Interdisciplinary survey of people of African descent that draws on the overlapping approaches of history, literature, anthropology, legal studies, media studies, performance, linguistics, and creative writing. This course connects the experiences of African-Americans and of other American minorities, focusing on social, political, and cultural histories, and on linguistic patterns.
Writing Early American Lives: Gender, Race, Nation, Faith
Description: This course focuses on the period between roughly 1550-1850. American ideas of race had taken on a certain shape by the middle of the nineteenth century, consolidated by legislation, economics, and the institution of chattel slavery. But both race and identity meant very different things three hundred years earlier, both in their dictionary definitions and in their social consequences. How did people constitute their identities in early America, and how did they speak about these identities? Texts will include travel writing, captivity narratives, orations, letters, and poems, by Native American, English, Anglo-American, African, and Afro-American writers.

Additional Websites:

National Museum of African American History and Culture
The National Museum of African American History and Culture is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, history, and culture. It was established by Act of Congress in 2003, following decades of efforts to promote and highlight the contributions of African Americans. To date, the Museum has collected more than 36,000 artifacts and nearly 100,000 individuals have become members. The Museum opened to the public on September 24, 2016, as the 19th and newest museum of the Smithsonian Institution.
The Power of Poetry
National Museum of African American History and Culture:
Poetry has always loomed large on the African American literary landscape. Through the centuries, it has conveyed the aspirations, resilience, and vibrancy of African Americans.
NMAAHC: The Collection
The Smithsonian has launched its Open Access Initiative. Images of objects from the NMAAHC collection are now available to view, download, and share through a CC0 license.
NMAAHC: The Collection - Literature