RELG 305: Race, Religion, and American Multiculturalism

This tab includes further information on handbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries and bibliographies. 

• Handbooks are subject area tools and provide facts, terms, concepts, movements, etc. 
• Subject dictionaries focus on word definitions in a specific subject area. 
• Encyclopedias provide basic and general background information on a topic or subject. 
• Bibliographies are sources that contain detailed information about where to find further information on a specific topic or subject. Sometimes these look like the bibliographies you might compile at the end of a term paper. Sometimes they are books or online resources with a list of resources. Other times they act like annotated bibliographies, with short essays or statements describing the resource and why it might be useful to a researcher. Bibliographies differ from handbooks because they go into further depth on a topic.  They may include critical essays where the author identifies the core literature of a field of study. It illustrates what is available in a given field, while a literature review often opens up questions for new inquiries. 

Here is a selected list of materials you may find useful. Handbooks provide readers with a summary overview of a topic and include carefully selected bibliographies.  Be sure to look at the lists for further reading provided by the authors of the entries--they will be especially useful for you as you deepen your research. ​​

• Encyclopedia of Religion online and hardcopy              

• Encyclopedia of African and African American Religions              

• Encyclopedia of African American Religions              

• Encyclopedia of Religion in America              

• The new encyclopedia of Southern culture. Volume 24, Race              

• The Wiley-Blackwell encyclopedia of social and political movements              

Literature reviews are a particularly useful kind of article when doing research. They address the issues involved in a particular question and the debates among scholars. They map out the intellectual terrain succinctly and give you the major landmarks in terms of key authors and significant titles.

The Oxford Bibliographies Online                provide literature reviews for a variety of fields. You can take a look at their subjects and complete a few searches to find what you are interested in).  The essays take the form of an annotated bibliography.  It gives you the benefit of expert advice when identifying what to read for your research. 

• Religion by John Evans has a section on Race and Inequality
• Multiculturalism by Andrea Voyer

If you are on Bryn Mawr or Swarthmore's campus, check out their subscription to Atlantic History where you can read the following two articles. 

• African American Religions by Stefania Capone
• Jews and Blacks by Jonathan Schorsch