GSWS 431: Local Sex on Global Screen

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Contact info

For Library research help, please contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies moninder_lalli@sfu.ca or Ask a librarian.

Selected reference sources on films

For more, try the Library guide: Film information sources - background information

 

Databases for articles

Databases let you easily to search for articles from within scholarly journals for a discipline.

If the full-text of the article is not available within the database then use the "Get@SFU" link to find it or to initiate an inter-library loan request.

Start with Women's Studies International for any issues related to gender, sexuality and women's studies

Key databases for Film articles and reviews.

  • Film & Television Literature Index: International index to scholarly and popular journal literature on film, television and video.
  • Film Literature Index (FLI): Citations to journal articles, film reviews and book reviews published between 1976-2001. For later years consult the Film and Television Literature Index.
  • Communication & Mass Media Complete: Indexing & abstracts for over 300 journals in the fields of communication, mass media studies, linguistics and film including full text for nearly 200 journals
  • ProQuest Sociology Collection - for issues related to class, gender, racism, sexuality and sexism and theoretical and applied sociology, social science, and policy science. For information of immigrants, racism, society, structural barriers, etc.
  • Oxford Bibliographies Online  Lists key books, articles, and other sources on a wide variety of subjects via annotated and curated bibliographies. An excellent starting point for locating important literature and scholarly sources on a topic. Focuses on the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Also included are bibliographies on film, cinema, and directors. 

Use "Advanced search" and then use keywords to specify the name of a group and words for the "sexuality" aspect.
Limit this search to the "section" "Cinema and Media Studies"

E.g. Chinese and gay [limited to subsection of "Cinema and Media Studies"]

Primary source database

Archives of Sexuality & Gender  A collection of primary sources on social, political, health, and legal issues impacting LGBTQ communities around the world since 1940.  Rare and unique content from newsletters, organisational papers, government documents, manuscripts, pamphlets, and other types of primary sources sheds light on the gay rights movement, activism, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and more.

Use the "Advanced" search or "Topic finder"

Try a searches such as:

  • film* or cinema or "motion picture*"
  • [name of a film] and "review or critic*"

Writing film criticism

  • An introduction to film analysis : technique and meaning in narrative film [print]
  • A short guide to writing about film / Timothy Corrigan [online is on order] [print]
  • The language and style of film criticism [online] [print]

For more, try the Library guide: Writing about film

Find books in the Library

How to use the Library Catalogue  [guide]

Search by topic, using Basic or Advanced Search.  For known items it is best to use "Browse by title" search.

Try searching by keywords and then limit by "Subject" (left-hand column) and "Resource type" of "books":

Names of films, directors or actors

To find books on cinema from a different culture

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

Note:  For Catalogue Search, when combining concepts, use CAPITAL letters ( "OR", "AND")

Look at the titles in the "results list" and for those books that look relevant, click on their subject headings to find more books on that topic.

Selected books

  • African American women and sexuality in the cinema [online] [print]
  • Film Manifestos and Global Cinema Cultures A Critical Anthology [online] [print]
  • The gendered screen : Canadian women filmmakers [online] [print]
  • New queer cinema : the director's cut [online] [print]
  • Queer nostalgia in cinema and pop culture [online]

Browse subject headings for books

Browse by Subject    (change the default "title" to "subject").  Browse by Subject will only result in books, not book chapters or journal articles.

To find films from a particular country, but not necessarily related to sexual identity

Motion pictures--[specific geographical place]; Examples, below:

Writing an annotated bibliography

The guide below provides information on how to write an annotated bibliography.

How to Write an Annotated Bibliography

Citing films

Citing film in MLA