This library guide provides links to library databases and search tools that will help you prepare for your final research assignment. If you have questions about these resources, please contact Gina Bastone, English Librarian: g.bastone@austin.utexas.edu
Use the following databases to search for books, peer-reviewed journal articles, and other scholarly sources. Not sure what makes a book or article "scholarly"? See this helpful guide.
The UT Libraries provides access to magazines and newspapers through academic databases (not through the publications' website). Below are some select databases to help you find magazine and newspaper articles, as well as reviews of books.
These searches can be tricky, so please don't hesitate to ask Gina with questions. If you hit a paywall for a magazine or newspaper, she can help you navigate the library's resources to find the full text.
The library has ebook versions of your required course texts.
PLEASE NOTE: These ebooks are available to only one UT Austin user at a time. Please read the books using your web browser, and close your browser window when you are finished reading so others can access the ebook.
Dawn by
An alien race calls on one woman to revive mankind after Earth's apocalypse in this science fiction classic from the award-winning author of Parable of the Sower. Lilith Iyapo has just lost her husband and son when atomic fire consumes Earth--the last stage of the planet's final war. Hundreds of years later Lilith awakes, deep in the hold of a massive alien spacecraft piloted by the Oankali--who arrived just in time to save humanity from extinction. They have kept Lilith and other survivors asleep for centuries, as they learned whatever they could about Earth. Now it is time for Lilith to lead them back to her home world, but life among the Oankali on the newly resettled planet will be nothing like it was before. The Oankali survive by genetically merging with primitive civilizations--whether their new hosts like it or not. For the first time since the nuclear holocaust, Earth will be inhabited. Grass will grow, animals will run, and people will learn to survive the planet's untamed wilderness. But their children will not be human. Not exactly. Featuring strong and compelling characters and exploring complex themes of gender and species, Octavia E. Butler presents a powerful, postapocalyptic interplanetary epic, as well as a ray of hope for humanity. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Octavia E. Butler including rare images from the author's estate.
The Handmaid's Tale by
Before The Testaments, there was The Handmaid's Tale: an instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from "the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction" (New York Times). The Handmaid's Tale is a novel of such power that the reader will be unable to forget its images and its forecast. Set in the near future, it describes life in what was once the United States and is now called the Republic of Gilead, a monotheocracy that has reacted to social unrest and a sharply declining birthrate by reverting to, and going beyond, the repressive intolerance of the original Puritans. The regime takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word, with bizarre consequences for the women and men in its population. The story is told through the eyes of Offred, one of the unfortunate Handmaids under the new social order. In condensed but eloquent prose, by turns cool-eyed, tender, despairing, passionate, and wry, she reveals to us the dark corners behind the establishment's calm facade, as certain tendencies now in existence are carried to their logical conclusions. The Handmaid's Tale is funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing. It is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and a tour de force. It is Margaret Atwood at her best.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Generic License.
