J301: East Asia in World History
| Finding Primary Sources To find primary sources from Asia in English, use the Advanced Search screen in IUCAT. Use one of these Library of Congress subject terms: china history japan history Use sources as an additional subject term. Then select English as the language limit. For literature, try chinese literature translations into english as the subject. (This also works with japanese, korean, etc). You can also consult reference books, such as the Cambridge History of China (DS 735 .C3145) or the Cambridge History of Japan (DS 835 .C36 1993), both in the Wells Library Reference Room, or even the Encyclopaedia Britannica, to find authors and titles to search for. The Wells Library has two enourmous collections of Western sources about Asia, China through Western Eyes and Japan through Western Eyes, both in the Microforms area (ask for help there locating and using them). Materials in these collections can easily be scanned, to create your own online collection of primary sources. Western sources can also be found in Early English Books Online and Eighteenth Century Collections Online, as wells as the New York Times archive and the London Times Digital Archive. |
Finding Secondary Sources Use IUCAT to find secondary sources too. Look up books or authors that are mentioned in your assigned readings using the Keyword screen. The Advanced Keyword screen can be a good place to start if you don't know exactly what you're looking for. Try china history japan history (etc) as a subject term, but also include a keyword (like war or education) to narrow your results. Or, use the Browse screen and browse by subject on one of the subject headings suggested here, such as japan history or chinese literature, to find good subject headings. To find articles in scholarly journals, search in Academic Search (EBSCO) (be sure to limit your search to peer-reviewed journals, unless you are researching a contemporary topic and want to find news sources as well as scholarly sources), or Historical Abstracts, where you can search for articles about a specific time period (first click on Add/Remove Fields, Add All, then enter a time period in the Time Periods box). Many articles in these databases are available online: if you don't see a link to full text, click on the IU-Link button to see your options. Bibliography of Asian Studies is another good place to look for secondary sources. It includes both books and articles. If you find something you want to read, you'll need to go back to IUCAT to locate it (remember to search for the journal title if it's an article in a journal, not the article title). |
| Expand your knowledge: Professional Organizations H-WORLD, an online forum for world history, has links to course syllabi and other teaching materials. The discussion logs are searchable: you could look here for ideas and experts on a particular topic. The Association for Asian Studies is responsible for the Bibliography of Asian Studies (see above). They also publish Education about Asia, a journal specifically for world history teachers (see the EAA web page for lots of useful information). Their Links and Resources page is a great place to start looking for free online resources for teaching and studying Asian history. The World History Association holds an annual conference with sessions on teaching world history. | |
