HIS 4603/4973/6973 / AMS 4973: Madness & American Civilization (Clinton)

Research tips and resources for the study of the history of madness in American civilization

Research Tips

Research Tips for History Students
Follow these expert tips to make the most of your research and save time.

Relevant Bibliographies

Bibliographies, or lists of sources, can be a useful starting point for your research. Oxford Bibliographies Online (OBO) is a database that contains bibliographies on almost any subject with recommendations for scholarship at all levels, whether encyclopedias and textbooks or journal articles and primary sources. For each topic in OBO, you'll find bibliographic essays and annotated citations. The content is selective and peer-reviewed, chosen by experts in their disciplines.

The first two links below go to specific topics in Oxford Bibliographies Online that may be particularly useful for this course because they focus on History. You may also wish to search the entire OBO database (third link below) using terms such as: madness, insanity, mental health, mental illness, psychology, psychiatry, etc.

Oxford Bibliographies Online This link opens in a new window
:

Finding Secondary Sources

Google Scholar
Searches scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.
How to Use Google Scholar Off Campus
Due to recent changes made by Google, you'll need to do a one-time set-up for your account to access full-text articles available through UTSA Libraries. Step by step instructions provided.

America: History and Life (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Selectively indexes and abstracts the scholarly literature on U.S. and Canadian history from prehistory to the present. Includes citations to journal articles, book and media reviews, and dissertations. Also includes useful features such as the ability to search by historical time period. For world history, see Historical Abstracts.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Searchable full-text and full-image backfiles of scholarly journals, as well as e-books, and primary resources. Subject areas include the arts, humanities, social sciences, science, math, and business. Includes the Artstor Digital Library containing millions of images from the world's museums, archives, and libraries.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Searchable full-text and full-image versions of scholarly journals and e-books from university presses and scholarly societies. Subject areas include the humanities, social sciences, math, and science.
PsycINFO (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Covers professional and academic literature in psychology and related disciplines. Contains over two million citations and summaries of articles from journals, books, book chapters, dissertations, and technical reports. Some full-text.
Dissertations & Theses Global (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Provides citations and abstracts, as well as full text PDFs, to millions of doctoral dissertations and master's theses from graduate schools and universities around the world. Full text coverage is primarily from 1997 forward, with a significant number of full text titles previous to 1997. Coverage is from 1637 to the present.

Selected Peer Reviewed Journals

Selected Books

Madness: A Brief History

Roy Porter

Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason

Michel Foucault

Suspicious Minds: How Culture Shapes Madness

Ian Gold; Joel Gold

A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Twentieth Century

Ben Shephard

An Unquiet Mind

Kay Redfield Jamison

Unspeakable: The Story of Junius Wilson

Susan Burch; Hannah Joyner

Madness in America: Cultural and Medical Perceptions of Mental Illness before 1914

Lynn Gamwell; Nancy Tomes

"In this book, Lynn Gamwell and Nancy Tomes explore the historical roots of Americans' understanding of madness today. "[The authors] observe telling differences in the ways in which patients of different genders, races, and classes have been diagnosed and treated. The authors demonstrate how definitions of madness figured in national debates over abolitionism, women's rights, and alternative medicine."

Get Items from Other Libraries

WorldCat (OCLC) This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive online catalog of library holdings locally and worldwide. Lists books, journals, maps, recordings, films, scores, open access resources, and other materials from academic, public, corporate, and specialized libraries. Get It For Me button allows you to request to borrow an item.

Get It for Me
Interlibrary loan, document delivery, transport items between JPL and Downtown Library.
TexShare
TexShare is a statewide library resource-sharing program. It allows users from one library to check out library materials at other participating libraries.