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Contact info
For Library research help, please contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies by email moninder_lalli@sfu.ca or Ask a librarian.
Research process
Start Your Research Here -- This page gives you an overview of the research process, or in other words how to find materials for your essay.
Selected dictionaries and encyclopedias
- Ashgate research companion to memory studies
- Encyclopedia of modern Asia
- Encyclopedia of modern China
- Handbook of Culture and Memory
- Handbook on ethnic minorities in China
- Narrating Southern Chinese Minority Nationalities: Politics, Disciplines, and Public History
- Routledge encyclopedia of traditional Chinese culture
- Routledge Handbook of Asian Borderlands
- Routledge Handbook of Chinese Culture and Society
- Routledge Handbook of the Chinese Diaspora
- Routledge handbook of East Asian gender studies
- Routledge handbook of East Asian popular culture
- Routledge handbook of human rights in Asia
- Routledge handbook of memory and place
- Routledge handbook of revolutionary China
- Routledge Handbook of Sexuality Studies in East Asia
- Routledge handbook of Southeast Asian development
- Routledge handbook of the belt and road
- Routledge handbook of the environment in Southeast Asia
- Routledge international handbook of memory studies
- Routledge International Handbook of Race, Class and Gender
Find journal articles
How to find journal articles
Search for journal articles on your topic using the databases, below.
Use the "Get@SFU" link to find it or to initiate an inter-library loan request.
Women's Studies International
For issues related to gender, sexuality and women's studies
Literature on all aspects of U.S. and Canadian history, culture and current affairs from prehistory to present. Access is limited to 6 users at a time. Users will be automatically logged out of the database after 12 minutes of inactivity.
Key database for Anthropological journal articles and finding ethnographies.
Bibliography of Asian Studies
Periodicals, individually authored monographs (published 1971 to 1992 only), chapters in edited volumes, conference proceedings, anthologies, and Festschriften on East, Southeast, and South Asia.
Bibliography of Indigenous Peoples in North America - Academic articles and Indigenous news sources. Covers all aspects of Native North American culture, history, and life from the sixteenth century to the present. Topics include archaeology, multicultural relations, gaming, governance, legend, and literacy. For questions such as "residential schools."
Canada Commons (formerly, Canadian Electronic Library from desLibris) - for public policy documents from Canadian institutes, think-tanks and research groups.
CBCA Complete
Comprehensive Canadian periodical collection for reference and current events. Publications include scholarly journal articles, trade publications, dissertations, books, newspapers and magazines.
Historical Abstracts
Abstracts of journal articles, book reviews, dissertations on the history of the world outside, excluding Canada and the United States, since 1450. Access is limited to 6 users at a time. Users will be automatically logged out of the database after 12 minutes of inactivity.
International Political Science Abstracts
Abstracts of political science articles published in journals and yearbooks around the world. Coverage from 1951 to present
Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full Text (LISTA)
Covers the fields of librarianship, classification, cataloging, bibliometrics, online information retrieval, and information management. It also indexes journals related to museums.
News databases
These databases provide full-text articles from newspapers.
American Indian Newspapers
Print journalism from Indigenous peoples of the US and Canada, from 1828 to 2016.
Gale, Primary Sources
Search across multiple Gale collections for monographs, manuscripts, newspapers, photographs, maps, and other primary sources.
The Independent Digital Archive
Covers the entire print run of the British daily newspaper, 1986 - 2016.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Historical New York Times
Full text of the New York Times newspaper from its inception in 1851 to four years ago. Contains full-page images of each issue.
Times Digital Archive
Also known as the "The London Times" or "The Times of London" this is a digital reproduction of The Times newspaper with a 6-year embargo on current content. It also includes its predecessor The Universal Daily Register (1785-1788). The world's oldest continuously published newspaper, the Times contains extensive national (UK) and international news coverage, UK parliamentary reports, commentary, and editorial opinions. The entire newspaper is captured, with all articles, advertisements, and illustrations/photos.
Primary documents
Primary documents databases provide historical documents from a particular time period.
Primary Sources for the Humanities
This guide provides a list of many primary sources databases, most of which would have images. Check the side tab for databases or websites by geographic regions.
China: Trade, Politics and Culture, 1793-1980
Manuscripts, paintings, maps, photographs, drawings, and missionary periodicals documenting the experiences of British and American diplomats, missionaries, business people, and tourists in China from 1793 to 1980.
Canadiana online [[open]](Open access)
Canadian monographs, periodicals, government publications, newspapers and annuals. New content is added to Canadiana Online and complements the closed Early Canadiana Online database.
Archives and museums
An archive preserves the historical records (evidence) and they can be found at local (municipal), provincial or national levels. They could be private or public. Not everything in an archive is available in the digital format. In addition, some material may have restricted access or have an embargo period before the material is allowed to be viewed.
Library Archives Canada
"Acquires, processes, preserves and provides access to our documentary heritage." The search engine, below, searches both the Library and Archival collections.
- Collections search: An integrated search engine. Use the "Advanced search"
- Browse by topic
- Indigenous heritage: Discover our extensive collection of Indigenous documentary heritage
Museum journals may have articles on "memory", "representation", and discussions about inclusion or exclusion of different cultural histories. You may want to search the database,
Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full Text (LISTA)
Covers the fields of librarianship, and it also indexes journals related to museums.
Examples of journals:
Find books, book chapters, journal articles
The Library Catalogue provides access to books, journal articles, videos, government documents and much more. To limit the search results to "books", use the filter (left-hand column in search results) to "resource type" of "books."
Library Catalogue search guide
Search the SFU Library Catalogue, either the Basic or the Advanced search
Note: In the searches below, search results have been limited to "Online Resources only" and "Resource type" of "Books". You can further limit by using "Subject" (left-hand column)
- "collective memory"
- ("collective memor*" OR memoriali*) AND museum*
- ("collective memory" OR memoriali* or commemor*) AND ("Middle East" OR Egypt OR Syria OR Palestine)
- ("collective memory" OR memoriali* or commemor*) AND [geographic region]
- Histor* AND memor* AND (Asia OR China)
- Histor* AND memor* AND (Japan)
- histor* AND memor* AND Asia* AND (represent* OR re-writ*)
- national* AND "historical narrative*" AND (China OR Chinese)
- war AND (rape OR "gender violence" OR "sexual violence") AND (memor* OR narrative*)
- war AND (memory OR memoriali*) AND [geographic area]
- war AND (memory OR memoriali*) AND (discours* OR contested OR silence* OR eras*)
- #metoo
- "photo essay*"
- "photo essay*" AND ("how to" OR method* OR technique* OR creat* OR resistance)
Combine different concepts using AND
Combine same concepts using OR
Use quotation marks to search for a phrase
Use brackets for synonyms
Use asterisk (*) for different endings of words
Use pulldown menu and select, "Source Types" as "Books"
Note: For Catalogue Search, when combining concepts, use CAPITAL letters ( "OR", "AND")
Selected books
- Bodies of Memory: Narratives of War in Postwar Japanese Culture, 1945-1970
- Borderland Memories: Searching for Historical Identity in Post-Mao China
- Burden of visual truth : the role of photojournalism in mediating reality
- Discourses of Memory and Refugees: Exploring Facets
- Ethnic Distinctions, Local Meanings: Negotiating Cultural Identities in China
- Forbidden Memories
- Gender of Memory
- Gender, Resistance and Transnational Memories of Violent Conflicts
- History textbooks and the wars in Asia: Divided memories
- Identity, Trust, and Reconciliation in East Asia: Dealing with Painful History to Create a Peaceful Present
- Materializing memory in art and popular culture
- Mediating memory in the museum ; trauma, empathy, nostalgia
- Memory and Postwar Memorials : Confronting the Violence of the Past
- Memory Politics, Identity and Conflict: Historical Memory as a Variable
- Narrating Southern Chinese Minority Nationalities: Politics, Disciplines, and Public History
- Nations and their Histories : Constructions and Representations
- Negotiating Ethnicity in China: Citizenship as a Response to the State
- Places of memory in modern China : history, politics, and identity
- Political Symbols and National Identity in Timor-Leste
- Popular Memories of the Mao Era : From Critical Debate to Reassessing History
- Representing Communism After the Fall: Discourse, Memory, and Historical Redress
- Trauma and Public Memory
- Unfolding the ‘Comfort Women’ Debates: Modernity, Violence, Women’s Voices
- War memory, nationalism and education in post-war Japan: 1945 - 2007. - The Japanese history textbook controversy and Ienaga Saburo's court challenges.
Subject headings
Browse Books in the Library Catalogue Using Subject Headings
Catalogue Search / Browse then change "Title" to "Subject" and enter your subject term, for example:
- Collective Memory
- Collective Memory -- China
- Iran -- History -- Revolution, 1979 -- Personal narratives
- Memory -- Political aspects
- Memory -- Social aspects
- Memory studies
- Museums -- Historiography
- Museum techniques
- Photojournalism
- Women -- Afghanistan [see also the subheadings]
Subject headings for feminist research methods
Try the detailed guide, Research methods for Gender, Sexuality. and Women's studies
Search: "qualitative research" (limited to "Online Resources only")
"qualitative research" AND feminis* (limited to "Online Resources only")
- Feminism -- Methodology
- Feminism -- Research
- Intersectionality
- Interviewing
- Mixed methods research
- Transgender People -- Research Methodology
Selected books
- Beyond women's words : feminisms and the practices of oral history in the twenty-first century
- Handbook of feminist research : theory and praxis
- Just methods : an interdisciplinary feminist reader
- Sage encyclopedia of qualitative research methods
Cite images and something from social media sites
Images can be found in newspapers from the time period being studies, primary documents databases, archival repositories, etc.
- Finding and using online images: Citing (APA, MLA, Chicago)
Use the guide Primary Sources for the Humanities to find images in databases.
Citing something from Twitter or Facebook (APA)
APA (6th ed.)
Posts from the APA Style Blog 7th edition (new):
Archived 6th edition posts (citation examples and explanations):
For more, try Finding and using online images
Websites
- Chinese Posters: propaganda, history, politics, art
- Mao Era in Objects
- On Russia-China Border: Selective Memory of Massacre Works for Both Sides
- Xinjiang Documentation Project An authoritative website project "to provide a reading guide about the recent developments, experts’ explanations, as well as an understanding of what ethnic Uyghurs and Kazakhs are going through on a daily basis. It further aims to integrate research methods from social science, humanities, and other disciplines for the documentation and analysis of the on-the-ground situation." [from project website]
Google search tips
While searching the internet can find unexpected gems, be sure to evaluate the sources using the guide, "Evaluating sources"
- Use intitle: to force Google to find those words in the titles of results. Use quotation marks ("") to search for phrases. With a Google search the Boolean operator "AND" is assumed, so you don't need to use it in your search strategy.
- Use site: to specify results from a government web site from USA
- intitle:"comfort women" site:gov
- intitle:"comfort women" site:gov
- Search websites of different countries using the "country domain code"
- Internet Country Domain List (CIA's list)
E.g. Search internet domains from China (.cn) or Japan (.jp)
- Use filetype: to tell Google to find certain filetypes
- filetype:pdf
For more, try: Search Tips for Google and Google Scholar
Library guides
- Library Research Tutorials. Animated tutorials on search techniques for finding books and journal articles.
- Annotated bibliographies
- Evaluating sources
- How to find journal articles
- Library Catalogue search guide
- What is a scholarly (or peer-reviewed) journal?
- What is plagiarism? Guide to common forms of plagiarism and how to avoid them
Presentation skills
- Resources on developing your participation skills
- Resources to help you improve your presentation skills
Writing help
See the Student Learning Commons for expert and friendly help with academic writing, learning, and study strategies.