Religion and culture: Recommended

Religion and culture at Virginia Tech

The Virginia Tech Department of Religion and Culture "focuse[s] on the ways religion works in human lives around the globe and investigate how factors such as geographical region, multicultural settings, and popular culture shape communities and traditions. Our faculty guides students to think critically about human relationships, value diversity, and communicate clearly, skills necessary and highly sought-after in a wide range of careers."

Undergraduate minors are offered in the areas of American Studies, Appalachian Studies, Asian Studies, Judaic Studies, Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Middle East Studies, Popular Culture, and Religion.

Overview for religion and culture

ATLA Religion from EBSCOhost
ATLA Religion Database indexes citations, abstracts, and full text of articles from journals, essays, book reviews, and multimedia citations. Full text, when available, is in HTML and PDF. You can limit searches to peer-reviewed sources.
Loeb Classical Library
Loeb Classical Library provides ebooks of Latin and Greek works that show the original language and English translation on facing pages. You can search using Latin or Greek letters.
Oral History Online from Alexander Street Press
Oral History Online is both an index of full-text interviews and other oral history narratives and free oral history information online. The narratives cover diverse subjects, including civil rights and race relations, labor history, African American history, women's history, immigration studies, political history, American Indian history, regional history, and more.
Religion & Philosophy Collection from EBSCOhost
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Religion and Philosophy Collection indexes citations, abstracts, and full text from journal articles, magazines, and book reviews in the field of world religions, biblical studies, religious history, epistemology, political philosophy, moral philosophy and the history of philosophy. Full-text materials are available in HTML and PDF. You can limit to peer-reviewed sources. 1967-present.
World History in Context from Gale
World History in Context provides curated topic pages with academic journal articles, primary sources, reference works, news sources, multimedia, and biographies on people, countries and cultures, conflicts, organizations, religions, events, periods, and economics.

ARDA (Association of Religion Data Archives)
The ARDA includes more that 1,000 different American and international data collections submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. Each of these collections can be reviewed online or downloaded from our Data Archive. In addition, the ARDA includes family trees mapping out the lineage of major world religions, and the historical trends and family trees for hundreds of American religious groups. The American Religion Timelines offer additional information and images on religious events, groups, people, and movements across American history.
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Grant funded; open to all users

American Studies

America's Historical Imprints from Readex
America's Historical Imprints is a digital collection containing virtually every book, pamphlet, and broadside published in America over a 200-year period. It is comprised of a vast range of publications, including advertisements, almanacs, bibles, broadsides, catalogs, charters and by-laws, contracts, cookbooks, elegies, eulogies, laws, maps, narratives, novels, operas, pamphlets, plays, poems, primers, sermons, songs, speeches, textbooks, tracts, travelogues, treaties, and more. Scanned pages available as JPEG, TIFF, and PDF.
Also known as Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800 and Series II, Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819. Contains virtually every known book, pamphlet and broadside published in America between 1640 and the first two decades of the 19th century—more than 75,000 printed items in all. Based on renowned bibliographies by Charles Evans and Roger Bristol and by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker.
America: History & Life from EBSCOhost
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America: History and Life is an index of literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. The database includes citations and links to journal articles, dissertations, primary documents, and book and media reviews. Some content is available full-text (PDF and HTML). Allows limiting to peer reviewed articles, those with references, and to historical periods (date ranges). 1863-present.
American National Biography Online
American National Biography provides HTML full-text biographical entries and over 2,700 illustrations on 18,700 men and women -- from all eras and walks of life -- whose lives have shaped the nation. It includes access to The Oxford Companion to United States History encyclopedia with entries on all aspects of American history.
The American National Biography offers portraits of more than 18,700 men and women -- from all eras and walks of life -- whose lives have shaped the nation. The ANB features over 2,700 illustrations and more than 80,000 hyperlinked cross-references. Use limited to one concurrent user; if you get a message that access is not currently available; wait a while and try again.

ANB includes access to The Oxford Companion to United States History. This resource explores not only America's political, diplomatic, and military history, but also social, cultural, and intellectual trends; science, technology, and medicine; the arts; and religion. The 900 articles selected for inclusion in ANB Online expand the learning experience, providing context to the biographies and further illuminating the nation's history through defining events (Wounded Knee, the Vietnam War), social movements (Suffrage, Civil Rights), ideologies (conservatism, Social Darwinism),and even natural disasters and iconic sites (the Chicago Fire, Niagara Falls). Where available, links can be found in the left-hand pane, next to the article text.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
Allows searching and viewing newspaper pages from 1860-1922 and finding information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Full-text newspapers from Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington are currently available.
European Views of the Americas: 1493-1750 from EBSCOhost
European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750 indexes citations of printed records (books and similar formats) about the Americas written in Europe before 1750 contains more than 32,000 citations. It covers the history of European exploration as well as portrayals of Native American peoples. It will list libraries that own the source documents, though few of these will be available through interlibrary loan. Note: This is an index-only database (e.g. citations).
European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750 is a comprehensive guide to printed records about the Americas written in Europe before 1750 contains more than 32,000 citations. It covers the history of European exploration as well as portrayals of Native American peoples. Free access is also available.

It will list libraries that own the source documents, though few of these will be available through interlibrary loan. Reproductions may be available from other sources. Bibliographic data is in the source language.
Historical Statistics of the United States
The Historical Statistics of the United States (HSUS) Millennial Edition Online provides data on social, behavioral, humanistic, and natural sciences including history, economics, government, finance, sociology, demography, education, law, natural resources, climate, religion, international migration, and trade - quantitative facts of American history. Data is available in HTML, PDF, and Excel.
This standard source for the quantitative facts of American history is now completely expanded and revised, with the following new features:

Landmark reference now available as an electronic database.
Fully cross-referenced and indexed.
Downloadable and customizable to suit individual areas of interest.
Download tables in Excel or CSV; also download entire groups of tables as a zip file.
Create custom tables - merge columns from multiple tables to create custom tables, which can also be downloaded, printed, or graphed.
Advanced searching of the tables, their documentation, and essays.
Full citation downloading in RIS, text, or CSV format.

Historical Statistics of the United States, a compendium of statistics from over 1000 sources, was last updated in 1975. It has now been expanded to include over 37,000 data series, which is three times more than the previous edition. The Millennial Edition includes dozens of new topics including slavery, American Indians, and poverty. This monumental five-volume work is now available in both print and electronic formats.

This thoroughly revised five-volume reference work reflects thirty years of new data and scholarship. Topics ranging from migration and health to crime and the Confederate States of America are each placed in historical context by a recognized expert in the field. The fully searchable and downloadable electronic edition (a single one-time purchase!) permits users to graph individual tables and create customized tables and spreadsheets reflecting own particular areas of interest. The special features offered in this online version of the Millennial Edition are:

Viewing tables in PDF or HTML format
Tables online include full documentation, sources, and footnotes - all the information that appears in the printed volumes
Bookmarking tables or essays for easy reference
Enhanced table display features: jump to a certain table column (series), skip over blank data cells, highlight table rows and columns for readability
Creating and downloading colorful charts, graphs, and plots
Selecting certain years or series of years to view, download, print, or graph
Downloading unrounded table data, for more detailed statistical analyses
Toggling table sorting by ascending or descending year
Searching within a chapter or part
Saving your search criteria
Searchable term and contributor indexes
Emailing a table or essay to a colleague
Making of America from the University of Michigan
Making of America (MoA) is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. Content is available in text, GIF, and PDF formats. 1840-1900.
Sabin Americana, 1500-1926 from Gale
Based on Joseph Sabin's landmark bibliography, this collection contains works about the Americas published throughout the world from 1500 to the early 1900's. Included are books, pamphlets, serials, and other documents that provide original accounts of exploration, trade, colonialism, slavery and abolition, the western movement, Native Americans, military actions, and much more.

T&LE Liaison Librarian; Coordinator of Int'l Outreach

Jennifer Nardine

she/her

Email Me

Contact:

Newman Library, Room 3007
Liaison Areas: Academy of Interdisciplinary Studies, Communication; Modern and Classical Languages & Lit; Performing Arts; Religion & Culture; Sociology

540-231-4073

Subjects: Humanities and performing arts, Languages and literatures

Ask a Librarian

Interlibrary Loan Services

All current Virginia Tech students, faculty, and staff, regardless of your location, may request through ILLiad for materials:

not owned by Virginia Tech (books, articles from journals and conference proceedings, book chapters, standards, and technical papers)
owned by Virginia Tech but are unavailable for use (print books)
owned by Virginia Tech and available in print (scans of articles from journals and conference proceedings, book chapters, standards, and technical papers)

We ship requests via UPS to users outside the immediate Blacksburg area (Montgomery, Giles and Pulaski counties).

Articles, book chapters, and many technical papers are delivered in PDF format to your ILLiad account. Occasionally, due to copyright restrictions, a paper copy of an article or standard is held for your at the Newman User Services Desk or sent o the mailing address listed on your account.