Guides: GRMN 011: Bad Taste: Overview

Finding scholarly articles

MLA International Bibliography
The primary database for finding literary criticism (as well as linguistics and folklore) for literatures in most modern languages. Search by themes, subjects, works, authors, critic, and more.
Historical Abstracts
For scholarly articles broadly related to all aspects of World History, excluding North America, beginning with the 15th century. See America: History and Life for the history of North America.
America: History and Life
History of North American--Pre-history to contemporary times.

Humanities Index
Formerly British Humanities Index, provides indexing of 400 humanities related journals

JSTOR
Covers most disciplines within the humanities and social sciences, environmental and biological sciences. Coverage is selective within each discipline. Most journals are represented from their very first volume, but may not include the most recent three to five years.

Google Scholar
Use this link to search Google Scholar to incorporate Penntext access to Penn subscribed and owned resources. Be sure to scroll through multiple pages. Google tends to privilege Google resources (i.e. Google Books) over items that you may be able to connect to in JSTOR or other Pennkey accessible databases and journals

Philosopher's Index
Provides citations and abstracts for chapters in book and journal articles on ethics, aesthetics, social philosophy, political philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, logic, and philosophy of mind as well as other areas with the broad field of Philosophy.
Sociological Abstracts
sociology, politics, political culture, international perspective

ARTstor
Searchable database of more than 500,000 digital images.
Grove Art Online
Covers all aspects of Western and non-Western visual art.
Oxford Music Online
The electronic version of the 29-volume New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the most comprehensive and authoritative encyclopedia of music in English.

Selected titles

The Greenwood Encyclopedia of World Popular Culture by Gary Hoppenstand, et al.
Call Number: Van Pelt Reference: HM621 .G74 2007 6 volumes print
ISBN: 031333255X
Publication Date: 2007
Popular Culture by Marcel Danesi
Call Number: Van Pelt Stacks: HM621 .D36 2012 print
ISBN: 1442217820
Publication Date: 2012
Popular Culture by Michael Pickering (Editor)
Call Number: Penn Web (Online)
ISBN: 1848602006
Publication Date: 2010

Finding Scholarly Articles

As you search these databases you may find that the articles you identify to support your research are online, in print journals in the library, or are at other libraries. For this last category you will use Interlibrary Loan.

Keywords for searching in Franklin or Article Databases

Subject headings are assigned; Keywords are found throughout a record or text.

Kitsch and "Popular Culture" are both library of congress subject terms/phrases. Add place names, personal names, or other terms:

Kitsch--Spain

kitsch aesthetics

kitsch popular culture

popular culture nabokov

("popular culture" or kitsch) and nostal*

melodrama AND (kitsch or "popular culture")

"good taste" OR "bad taste"

("bad taste" or "good taste") AND (literature OR fiction)

Lolita AND consumer*

Flaubert AND kitsch

Goethe AND dilettant*

Selected titles

Kitsch, Kommerz und Kult: Soziologie des schlechten Geschmacks by Frank Illing
Call Number: Van Pelt Stacks: HM621 .I45 2006
ISBN: 389669541X
Publication Date: 2006
Kitsch by Monica Kjellman-Chapin
ISBN: 9781443845991
Publication Date: 2013-04-01
The essays in this collection necessarily cut a wide interpretative path, mapping the terrain of the phenomenon of kitsch.

Finding films & film reviews

Cinema Studies research guide

The Penn Libraries provide access to a large collection of feature and documentary films, as well as secondary resources in cinema studies.

Search Franklin: Catalog

Library of Congress Classification areas

PN: general literature, theater, film
PR: British literature (including commonwealth)
PS: American literature
PT: German literature
B-BD: Philosophy, BH: aesthetics
D-DR: History of Europe, individual countries
GN: Anthropology
GR-GT: folklore, Manners and Customs
HM-HN: Sociology, Social History

Books are further broken down by authors, time periods, sub-topics
Find a book that looks interesting and browse the area for other books
Remember that a good scholarly book or article will have bibliographies and footnotes that lead you to other good resources

Contact for Research Assistance

Brigitte Burris

bweinst@upenn.edu
215-746-3863
Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center
Office 218

Encyclopedias and Dictionaries

Companion to Aesthetics by Stephen Davies, et al.
Call Number: Van Pelt Reference: BH56 .C65 2009 print
ISBN: 1405169222
Publication Date: 2009
168 alphabetically arranged articles provide comprehensive treatment of the main topics and writers in this area of aesthetics.
Aesthetics A-Z by Eran Guter
Call Number: Van Pelt Reference: BH56 .G88 2010 Print
ISBN: 0748623396
Publication Date: 2010
Covers the key concepts, arguments, problems and figures in aesthetics and the philosophy of art. T
The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art by Joan Marter (Editor)
ISBN: 9780195335798
Publication Date: 2011-01-20
An up-to-date survey of this essential and ever-growing area of art history.

See especially Denis Dutton's entry on "Kitsch."