Comedy, Race & Gender Some Strategies for Research

1. Comedy, Race & GenderSome Strategies for Research

2. Comedy, Race & Gender :Some Strategies for Research Babbalooo, Lucy! I’m so essited! We gonna learn ‘bout library research Gary Handman Director Media Resources Center Moffitt Library

3. The point of all this... • Describe the types and sources of information available related to film studies and other media research • Discuss how to find this stuff in the library, using print and online resources • 3. Introduce a group of basic moves and features common to many online catalogs and indexes. • 4. Practice using these features in selected databases.

4. Writing About Film… Current Historical Scholarly/ In-depth Pop and fan Industry

5. Sources for Film & TV Scholarship and Research • Journals, Magazines, Newspapers • Reviews • Critical/Scholarly Articles • Books • Web Sites (more about this later…) • Other online databases

6. Journal Articles:Reviews? Critical Writing? What’s the Diff? • Reviews: • Found in popular periodicals, film periodicals, and (less often) in more scholarly journals • Assessment of aesthetic and content merits of a film • Usually cover current releases, more pop theatrical releases • Tend to be relatively short and relatively superficial (with some exceptions and depending on the publication and who’s doing the writing)

7. Journal Articles:Reviews? Critical Writing? What’s the Diff? • Critical analysis: • Found in books and scholarly or film-related journals • Discuss films in: • broader historical, cultural, political, artistic context and/or • Focus on a specific aspect of a film, film genre, or filmmaker • Tend to be longer, more substantive than reviews (with some exceptions and depending on the publication and who’s doing the writing) • Often include notes, bibliographies, other scholarly apparatus

8. Film Scholarship & Film Criticism William Dickson (Edison labs) invents The Kinetoscope 1950’s 1960’s Film Studies Film Scholarship 1889 1895 Brothers Auguste & Louis Lumiere stage 1st public film screening, Paris Writing about film = fan and industry perspectives until 1950’s/60’s Movies = 100+ Years Film Scholarship = 50 years

9. REVIEWS • Current • Historical (older) • Found in: • Popular & fan journals and newspapers • Film studies & scholarly journals • Web sites • Fan and enthusiast sites • Commercial sites (e.g., studio sites, video distributors) • Academic sites

10. Critical/Scholarly Articles • Current • Historical (scholarly writing about film: 1950’s-- • Found in: • Film studies & scholarly journals in other disciplines—eg: • Language & Lit • Women’s studies • Gay/Lesbian studies • Area studies…etc. • Web sites (even less occasionally…except for academic and commercial databases)

11. Reviews Critical/ScholarlyArticles Massood, Paula. "Mapping the Hood, The Genealogy of City Space in Boyz-n-the-Hood and Menace-II-Society. Cinema Journal, 1996 winter, v35 n2:85-97. ) Ansen, David. "Boyz N the Hood." (movie reviews) Newsweek v118, n3 (July 15, 1991):56. • Scholarly Articles and Reviews

12. Books • Scholarly/authoritative works • Pop schlock and fan works • How Do You Tell em’ apart? • Author’s credentials/affiliations • Publisher (e.g. BFI, AFI, University Presses vs pop press) • Scholarly apparatus and sources: notes, bibliographies, other documentation • If they’ve been widely cited by other scholars

13. …But how do you locate this stuff? Pathfinder • Inventory of what the Library owns: • Books • Journals (BUT NOT what’s inside of them!!!!!!) • Media • Manuscripts, documents, maps…etc. etc. etc. etc.) • Search by: • Author • Title • Subject (keywords)

14. Articles/Reviews (how do you find this stuff?) Article databases and Print Indexes • Film-related (not many exist) • General news • Literary and Arts • Other disciplines: e.g. Women’s Studies, American Studies, Ethnic Studies, History…etc.

15. Article Databases (how do you know which ones to use?) Jumping Off point for Finding Online Indexes: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/filmstudies/index.html Subject specialty Library Web page Example: Doe/Moffitt for Humanities & Social Sciences

16. Once You Find a Citation, How Do You Find the Journal/Article? • Some indexes provide holdings info [UC eLinks] • Some indexes link tofull-text If neither…use Pathfinder to look up the JOURNAL by title

17. Full-text! UCB Holdings!

18. How to Begin? Before you click: THINK • Formulate your search in terms of: • KEY WORDS andSYNOMYMS: • --Looks for words anywhere in record: title, subject, abstract and full-text (if avail) • PHRASES: • --Looks for words in the exact order entered

19. How to Begin? Before you click: THINK Formulate your search in terms of keyword and key phrases: Sex and Death in the films of Woody Allen. The representation of gender and masculinity in the films of Jim Jarmusch.

20. How to Begin? Before you click: THINK Formulate your search in terms of keyword and key phrases: Sex [women, love, relationships] and Death[dying, mortality, fate] in the films [cinema, movie*] of Woody Allen. The representation [reflect* portray*] of gender [sex*] and masculinity[masculin*, male, men] in the films [cinema, movie*] of Jim Jarmusch. **** Truncation varies from db to db: * # ? emigra* = emigrant, emigrants, emigrate, emigration

21. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/FilmBibMenu.html • a growing listing of bibliographies on various film topics and individual films compiled by MRC (includes bibs for genres, filmmakers, national cinemas, and individual film).

22. …being driven totally bananas by your research? Call me: Gary Handman 643-8566 ghandman@library.berkeley.edu