LibGuides: English IV : The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao: Research

Using Databases for Research

Use the suggested databases on this page to find literary criticism and articles about aspects of the novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

**To access databases off-campus, use the login and password provided to you in class, or email the librarian.

Essay Topic Ideas

Research the following suggested ideas in the databases to expand your understanding of the novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao:

Otherness
Power
Gender politics/ Feminism
Literary Genres
Literary Form
Divided self
Metaphysical: Supernatural, mythological, etc.
Religion/ Christian imagery
Hybridity
Diaspora
Class
Race
Sexuality
Philosophy: Existentialism, Transcendentalism, etc. . .
Psychoanalytic
Socio-historical Context
Archetypals
Socio-Economic Context

Academic Search Elite

Academic Search Premier
Search for articles in journals, magazines, and newspapers from virtually every area of academic study. Articles come from more than 8,500 journals, including more than 4,600 peer-reviewed titles.

JSTOR

JSTOR
This database contains scholarly articles on a variety of topics. Make sure that you put AND between keywords (eg. "Oscar Wao" AND "otherness") to get more precise results.

Gale Literature Resource Center

Literature Resource Center
This database focuses on articles that analyze literature. Do a WORKS SEARCH for the novel "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" to pull up all the literary criticism related to the novel. From these results, find the box on the right that says SEARCH WITHIN RESULTS and enter a term related to your topic to find articles that are relevant to your essay.

Gale World History in Context

World History in Context
Although this database focuses on world history, not literature, it can provide background information on many of the references in the novel, such as Trujillo, the history of the Dominican Republic, and other historical references. Do a search on JUNOT DIAZ to pull up an array of information about the novel.

Keyword Searching

Make a short list of keywords you will use to search for information from the databases. Use the following terms in combination with your keywords to improve your research results:

Use quotation marks around keywords that are phrases
- "oscar wao"
AND combines two keywords to narrow search results
- "oscar wao" AND race
OR combines two similar concepts to broaden search results. Separate phrase with PARENTHESES
- (racism OR race)
NOT excludes records containing the second keyword
- drones NOT bees
Use truncation (*) to expand a keyword search to anything with the word stem
- rac* --> race, racism, racists

English IV : The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao: Research

Getting Started