Course Guides
History 264
Religious Resurgence and Democratic Politics
Professor: David Thomas,
dthomas@ric.edu
Librarian: Patricia Brennan,
tbrennan@ric.edu
HELIN Catalog
Rhode Island College is a member of a consortium of seven colleges called HELIN: the Higher Education Library Information Network. Together we have created a shared system of electronic resources including an Online Catalog, which is also called HELIN. The HELIN Catalog provides the main access to the collections of all the HELIN libraries, including James P. Adams Library. HELIN contains records for books, periodicals and journals, government documents, curriculum materials, sound recordings, and electronic resources.
Strategies for searching the HELIN Catalog:
Subject Headings
- Religion
and Politics
Here are entered works on religion and politics for all periods and all cultures. The heading can be broken down geographically by adding a nation or geographic region.
All of these headings can be defined further by geographic limitations. Example: Buddhism and Politics Sri Lanka or Religion and Politics United States
- Democracy
Religious Aspects
Here are entered works on the relationship religion to democracies for all periods and all cultures. The heading can be broken down to specific religious groups
Examples
Browse Online or Shelves by Call Number
- BP60 Islam - History
- BQ550 Buddhism - History
- BR115 Christianity in relation to special subjects (such as democracy)
- DS140 Jews History
- JC49 Political Theory - Islamic state
- JQ1830 Political Institutions and Public Administration - Israel
Reference Works
- The Encyclopedia of Religion (1986)
REF BL31 .E46 1986 v.1-16
Periodical Indices
- Academic
Search Premier
Sample strategy: (muslim* or islam*) AND [here you can insert the name of a country, such as Indonesia, or a second concept, such as "cultur*"] The asterisk is a truncation symbol which enables you to retrieve muslim/muslims or culture/cultures/cultural with a single term.
Hint: consider choosing only the Peer-reviewed. This may improve the quality of your search results.
- JSTOR
Sample strategy: Four boxes are available for search terms. Change the drop-down menus to the right of each box to read "full text." Then try "muslim" OR "muslims" coupled with a third term. "Islam" OR "islamic" should also be tried. Be sure to choose All History Journals as the first set in which to search. Consider also trying the sets for Asian Studies, Anthropology, Philosophy, Political Science, and Sociology.
Free Web Resources
The sites listed here have been chosen for their academic value and relevance to this course. For a discussion of the criteria to be used in evaluating websites for academic purposes, please see The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: a page created by Susan Beck, Head of the Humanities and Social Sciences Department , New Mexico State University Library.
Center for Religion and Democracy
The mission of the Center on Religion and Democracy is to support research addressing the complex and dynamic role of religion in the public institutions and practices of democracy, which it does through undergraduate course offerings, survey research, and support for academic research. The Center also seeks to transcend the traditional boundaries of the academy by bringing the best of academic research to a public audience through publications, documentary films, and the World Wide Web.