Spanish: Literature, History, Culture & Film

Research guide to databases, websites, and reference works for information on Spanish language literature, history, culture and film

Also see UTSA Research Guides:

Databases and Websites for Spanish Language Articles and Books

Real Academia Española (RAE) (Royal Academy of Span)
Institution charged with safeguarding the correct use of the Spanish language. Founded in 1713, its motto, 'To cleanse, fix and enhance' defines this commitment. Links to dictionaries, archives, National Library, and digitized collections

Archive of Historical Catalan Journals: ARCA This link opens in a new window
ARCA(Art,llegnua societat i cultura catalanes)contains full text digital copies of historical Catalan magazines and journals covering the arts, culture, society, language, and history of Catalonia, Spain.
Fuente Academica Premier (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Provides access to the full text of 260 Spanish-language scholarly publications. Subjects covered include business & economics, medical sciences, political science, law, computer science, library & information sciences, literature, linguistics, history, philosophy and theology. Updated daily.
Gale Literature This link opens in a new window
This platform provides access to Gale Literature Criticism, the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Something About the Author, and additional literary focused content. Topic Finder tools are available across the platforms.
Handbook of Latin American Studies (HLAS) This link opens in a new window
An essential comprehensive bibliography of citations to scholarly works in Latin American Humanities and Social Sciences selected and annotated by scholars. Includes books, book chapters, journal articles, and conference proceedings published worldwide. Primarily in English, Spanish, or Portuguese, among other languages. Edited by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress. 1936-present. Updated monthly.
Hispanic American Periodicals Index (HAPI) This link opens in a new window
Indexing and significant full-text linkage to articles in scholarly journals, magazines, and books. Includes materials published worldwide in a variety of languages about Central and South America, the Caribbean, U.S.-Mexico border region, and U.S. Hispanics. Focus is Social Sciences and Humanities. 1967-present
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.

Latin American Periodicals Tables of Contents (LAPTOC)
LAPTOC is a searchable database of tables of contents of more than 800 Latin American journals, primarily in the humanities and social sciences.

Latin American Women Writers (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Consists of an extensive searchable collection of prose, poetry, and drama composed by women writers from 19 countries, including Mexico and countries in both Central and South America. Also included are essays by Latin American feminists and revolutionaries, which address both the universal concerns of women in every age and the distinctive issues of their struggles in the region. Currently features 36 plays and over 28,000 pages of prose. When completed, the collection will contain 300 plays and 100,000 pages of poetry and prose.
Literature Criticism Online (Gale) This link opens in a new window
Combines historical and modern criticism on works of poetry, short stories, and literature (including the Poetry Criticism, Short Story Criticism, and Contemporary Literature Criticism series).
MedicLatina (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text access to over 100 peer-reviewed Spanish-language medical research and investigative journals.
MLA International Bibliography (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Indexes critical scholarship on literature, criticism, language, linguistics, and folklore. Includes over 4,400 titles including journals, series, monographs, dissertations, bibliographies, proceedings, and other materials. Searches can be limited to Spanish. 1881 - current.
Periodicals Archive Online (PAO) (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Search periodicals in the humanities and social sciences including disciplines such as anthropology, area studies, economics, education, history, linguistics and philology, literature, music and the performing arts, and sociology, among others. Covers publications from the 15th century to the present. Includes full-text articles in languages other than English, with significant offerings in Spanish, French, and German.
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.
Something About the Author (Gale) This link opens in a new window
This resource provides access to information about authors (including children’s authors, including information about their works, personal lives, major themes, and additional sources from the Something About the Author series.

El Poder de la Palabra
Biographies, bibliographies, and text excerpts on writers, composers, architects and actors worldwide, including an extensive selection of outstanding Latin American, Spanish, and Portuguese authors. Also lists major literary prizes.
Spanish Civil War Collection (Microfilm Set)
Microfilm collection of 3,000 rare pamphlets, books, poetry and short stories from Spain, Portugal, Latin America and Philippines, as well as more than 100 German pamphlets in Spanish. Based on Herbert Rutledge Southworth Collection on the Spanish Civil War at University of California, San Diego Library. Individual items catalogued in Library Quick Search (see link above).
Microfilm location: JPL 4th Floor DP269 .A17 (57 reels) Print Index shelved with microfilm F1408 .H161
Publisher description and guide
Spanish Drama of the Golden Age, 1562-1850 (Microfilm Set)
Collection tracing the development of Spanish literary flowering from its beginnings with Lope de Vega in the last years of the 16th century to its end in the 17th century with Calderon de la Barca. Individual titles catalogued in Library Quick Search. (see link above).
Also Gale Online description and guide.
Microfilm Location: JPL 4th Floor Microfilm PQ6217 .S63 (86 reels) Print index shelved with microfilm F1408 .H161

World Scholar: Latin America & the Caribbean (Historical Collections) (Gale) This link opens in a new window
Full image historical and primary source documents from Mexico (including Texas/Tejas), Latin America and the Caribbean. Includes manuscripts, signed letters, expedition records, maps, diaries, historical newspapers & monographs, pamphlets, Department of State diplomatic records and more. Collected from archives in U.S. and Europe. Materials in English, Spanish, Portuguese and other languages.

Latin American Network Information Center (LANIC) http
Source for finding material on Latin America on the Internet from University of Texas at Austin's Institute of Latin American Studies. Categorized by country or subject.
http://lanic.utexas.edu/
Instituto Cervantes
A public institution created by the Spanish government in 1991 to promote the teaching of the Spanish language and the diffusion of Spanish and Spanish-American culture.

Ethnic NewsWatch (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text articles from more than 250 newspapers, magazines, and journals published in the United States by the ethnic, minority, and native press. Includes noted San Antonio bilingual newspaper, La Prensa de San Antonio. Some articles are in Spanish. Coverage is from 1960 to the present.
Nexis Uni (LexisNexis) This link opens in a new window
Excellent for finding full text news. Covers a wide variety of publications including major US newspapers, local newspapers, foreign language news, news transcripts and trade papers. Updated daily. To limit to a particular language, Advanced Search > News > Classification (enter Spanish). Search with Spanish terms. (Also available: French, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Russian)

Articles and E-Books in Spanish

REDalyc (Red de Revistas Científicas de América Latina y el Caribe, España y Portugal)
Bibliographic database and a digital library of open access academic journals and theses on scholarly topics. Developed and maintained by the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México. Articles may be in Spanish, Portuguese or English.

e-Libro Premium (ProQuest Ebook Central) This link opens in a new window
Spanish language e-books, both fiction and non-fiction, from Spain and Latin America included in Ebook Central database. Filter searches by language.
Periodicals Archive Online (PAO) (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Search periodicals in the humanities and social sciences including disciplines such as anthropology, area studies, economics, education, history, linguistics and philology, literature, music and the performing arts, and sociology, among others. Covers publications from the 15th century to the present. Includes full-text articles in languages other than English, with significant offerings in Spanish, French, and German.

... other databases of interest to Spanish

Dialnet
Dialnet (Difusión de Alertas en la Red) es uno de los mayores portales bibliográficos de acceso libre y gratuito, cuyo principal cometido es dar mayor visibilidad a la literatura científica hispana.
This is a virtual library of Spanish academic journals, hosted by the University de la Rioja in Spain.
Primarily a bibliographic index with tables of contents, it covers more than 5,000 journals and 2.1 million documents. There are a growing number of fulltext articles available as content is continuously updated. Subjects covered include the sciences, social sciences and the humanities and arts. It is particularly useful for subjects related to Spain, such as history and Islamic studies, not well covered by other popular databases.

Searching Library Databases

Library Quick Search (LQS) - covers many but not all UTSA-subscribed databases. You can filter for Spanish language, journal articles, peer reviewed, books and videos and other options in the left hand column of the search results.

For example, searching cervantes and war (to broaden your results you might add Spanish words, for example Cervantes and guerra)

Search results screen:

Find Articles in Google Scholar

Searching the Internet for Spanish Materials

Many Internet search engines allow you to limit your search by language.
You can also limit by the server country. For example: "site:.bo: limits to documents on servers in Bolivia.
For other domain names see Internet Country Domains List
Try entering your search terms in Spanish.
Try Spanish Internet search engines such as Google España or Yahoo! España