I need to do some research in South Asian Studies. Where do I start?

SEARCH KEYWORDS

  • language terms (Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Bengali, etc.)
  • publication type terms (bibliography, festschriften)
  • genre terms (tales, folk music, legends, storytelling)
  • geographic terms (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, etc.)
  • folklore, mythology, philology, hagiography


FURTHER GUIDANCE

Ramona Crawford, the library liaison to South Asian Languages and Literatures, is available to support researchers by email or via consultation (book an online or in-person appointment).

The Library Research Guide for South Asian Studies provides an introduction on how to approach research in South Asian studies and recommends the top go-to resources. 

KEY DATABASES

Bibliography of Asian Studies indexes more than 545,000 records on all subjects related to East, Southeast, and South Asia from 1971 to the present (primary disciplines covered are in the humanities and social sciences). Note well that monographs published since 1992 have not been added to the database, so for books in these areas please consult other databases (such as HOLLIS or WorldCat).

South Asia Open Archives (SAOA) is a rich and growing curated collection of key historical and contemporary sources in arts, humanities and social sciences, from and about South Asia, in English and other languages of the region. SAOA's collection contains hundreds of thousands of pages of books, journals, newspapers, census data, magazines, and documents, with particular focus on social & economic history, literature, women & gender, and caste & social structure.

JSTOR maintains a trusted archive of important scholarly journals with content spanning many humanities and social sciences disciplines, including several related to South Asian Studies. Includes academic journal articles, books, and primary sources. Be aware that the majority of including journals have a Moving Wall embargo of 3 to 5 years, so it is not the best option for your most up-to-the-minute publications.

MLA Bibliography Produced by the Modern Language Association, the bibliography consists of records pertaining to literature, language, linguistics, and folklore back to 1926.

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