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.

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 reference sources

Use encyclopedias, dictionaries and handbooks to obtain definitions and overviews of a topic and also to identify key authors.

• Battleground: women, gender, and sexuality
• Routledge companion to feminist philosophy
• Routledge History of Sex and the Body : 1500 to the Present
• Routledge Handbook of Sexuality, Health and Rights
• Transgender : a Reference Handbook

Find journal articles

How to find journal articles
Search for journal articles on your topic using the databases, below. You can "limit" your search to "academic or "scholarly / peer reviewed" journals.
Use the "Get@SFU" link to find it or to initiate an inter-library loan request.

• Women's Studies International - main database for any gender, women's studies or feminist topics
• Sociological Abstracts - main database for sociological literature

Find books, book chapters

The Library Catalogue provides access to books, journal articles, videos, government documents and much more. 

Library Catalogue search guide

Search the SFU Library Catalogue, either the Basic or the Advanced search

Note: In the searches below, search results can be been limited to "Online Resources only" and "Resource type" of "Books", and "Subject" (left-hand column)

• "body AND science AND feminis*
• (science OR medicine OR technolog*) AND body AND (gender OR sexualit*)
• corporealit* AND science AND femini*
• "Gender identity" AND (scien* OR biolog*)
• (Biopolitic* OR Biotechnolog* OR Bioecolog*) AND body

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 pull-down menu and select, "Source Types" as "Books"

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

Selected books

• Between the World and Me [print]
• Biopolitics and Utopia: An Interdisciplinary Reader
• Body/politics : women and the discourses of science
• Creating future people : the ethics of genetic enhancement
• Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery Deviance, Desire and the Pursuit of Perfection
• Feminist Theory: bodies, science and technology
• Genetic ethics : an introduction
• Global Perspectives on Stem Cell Technologies
• Imaginary Bodies: Ethics, Power and Corporeality
• M archive : after the end of the world
• Science and the construction of women
• Super you : how technology is revolutionizing what it means to be human
• Testo junkie : sex, drugs, and biopolitics in the pharmacopornographic era  [print]
• Transgender studies reader / edited by Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle
• Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future
• Wild science : reading feminism, medicine and the media
• Women, science, and technology : a reader in feminist science studies

Browse search

Browse by author

Catalogue Search / Browse then change "Title" to "Author" and then enter Author's Last name and then the First Name

• Harraway, Donna

Subject headings

Browse Books in the Library Catalogue Using Subject Headings

Catalogue Search / Browse then change "Title" to "Subject" and enter your subject term.   To find critical or biographical material about a person, enter the last name, and then the first name.

• Feminism and science
• Feminist theory
• Gender and sexuality
• Gender identity
• Genetic engineering -- Moral and ethical aspects
• Genetic engineering -- Social aspects
• Queer Theory
• Race discrimination -- Canada
• Race discrimination -- United States
• Sociology, Medical
• Sociology of the body
• Transsexualism

Presentation skills

• Resources on developing your participation skills
• Resources to help you improve your presentation skills

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

Writing help

• Student Learning Commons
• Academic writing resources
  • Book a consultation